Aerospace engineer who dabbles in the dark arts of programming

I’m Hui Ling, a PhD researcher in Sustainable Aviation

I work on cross-disciplinary computational research problems at the intersection of aerospace, atmospheric physics and computer science, to bring about an environmentally sustainable future. In addition, I am passionate about the craft of writing good software.

I am experienced in autonomously building robust solutions to complex and complicated problems; communicating technical information to all abilities; and quickly picking up the required software stack and domain knowledge.

In my free time, I muck about with different pieces of technology. Such as learning Rust, solving Advent of Code problems and self-hosting this website! My current personal project is setting up services on my unRAID NAS.

Education

2024 – Present

Doctoral Programme in Sustainable Aviation

Supervisors: Rafael Palacios and Edward Gryspeerdt

Research Areas: Aeroelasticity, Atmospheric Physics

My research investigates the impact of increased Clear Air Turbulence (CAT) intensity, due to climate change, on the design of aircraft. By understanding the impact we have had on the climate and closing the feedback loop, we can effectively mitigate aviation’s adverse impact on the climate.

2016 – 2021

MEng Aeronautical Engineering with a Year in Industry

First Class Honours

Experience

2022 – 2024

Software Engineer

Research Areas: Compilers, Memory Safety, Managed Runtimes

Core research developer on two UKRI Digital Security by Design (DSbD) projects to prevent cybersecurity attacks using ARM’s Morello board.

These projects involved leveraging Morello’s memory safety guarantees to secure the OpenJDK 17 Java Virtual Machine (JVM). With Graal, this protection was extended beyond JVM languages.

2021 – 2022

Graduate Software Engineer – Accelerator

Accelerator programme – a 6-month full-time, in-role training to become fully-fledged software engineers

2019 – 2020

AOCS/GNC Intern

Research Areas: AI, Spacecraft Controls Systems

Responsible for an R&D project on an AI algorithm for the Fault Detection, Isolation and Recovery (FDIR) on a spacecraft – focusing on the Attitude Orbit Control System (AOCS) and Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) subsystem

Awards

2025

Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship

2024

DSbD Ecosystem Beacon Awards Grand Prize

Awarded by the FreeBSD foundation and Innovate UK for high-impact work that has enriched and enhanced the CheriBSD environment by porting existing applications to run on Morello. For work that can make a broad and significant impact on digital security.

2019

Aeronautics Student Centenary Prize

Awarded by the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London for the top mark in the group design project.

2018

Best Undergraduate Student Representative Team

Awarded by Imperial College Union for ensuring democratic and effective representation of their constituency’s view, and improving the teaching and learning experience of their students in a lasting and measurable way.