Saurav Tiwari

Saurav Tiwari is a PhD student in the School of Engineering at the University of Surrey, supported by a fully funded EPSRC studentship. He completed his MEng in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Surrey in 2022, graduating with the highest overall result across all MEng programmes within the Division of Civil, Chemical, and Mechanical Engineering. In recognition of his academic excellence, he was awarded the Hector Wainwright Aerospace MEng Prize, the Royal Aeronautical Society Templer Prize, and The Wells Medal. Alongside his undergraduate studies, Saurav was a leading member of Surrey Team Preyton, which designed and built an unmanned aerial vehicle that won the IMechE UAS Challenge in two consecutive years (2021 and 2022).

Saurav’s research interests lie at the intersection of digital engineering and sustainable aviation technologies. This focus developed during an EPSRC-funded FEPS Summer Research Internship in 2021, where he conducted a feasibility study of battery-electric aircraft. His doctoral research builds on this foundation to assess liquid-hydrogen-powered aircraft and a range of associated propulsion architectures across a broad spectrum of mission and operational requirements. As part of this work, he developed an in-house tool, SHAPE (Surrey Hydrogen Aircraft Performance Evaluator), a system-level conceptual aircraft design and performance framework with integrated uncertainty quantification and propagation. This research addresses critical knowledge gaps in identifying technology performance thresholds and determining which mission and operational segments offer the greatest potential for credible early adoption. Ultimately, the research aims to enable robust, uncertainty-informed decision-making to de-risk the introduction of sustainable aviation technologies, thereby informing technology prioritisation and identifying low-risk pathways for design, demonstration, and entry into commercial service. As part of his doctoral work, Saurav actively collaborates with industry and national programmes. These activities include a joint project with Rolls-Royce focused on model linking and integration across multiple commercial physics-based tools (NPSS, MATLAB/Simulink, and Simcenter Amesim), as well as ongoing engagement with the UK Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Modelling Group through reciprocal model review and technical feedback.