Contact
Location
MEC Room 329
122 Engineer's Way
Charlottesville, VA 22904

About

Chen Cui received his Ph.D. in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 2023, where he also completed his Master’s degree in High-Performance Computing. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from Beihang University in 2017. Before joining the University of Virginia as an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Dr. Cui was an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Mississippi State University. Dr. Cui’s research lies at the intersection of plasma physics, space engineering, and high-performance computing. His work focuses on the high-fidelity, fully kinetic modeling of plasma dynamics in spacecraft electric propulsion thrusters, solar wind, and other applications related to low-temperature plasmas. Dr. Cui is the primary developer of Vlasolver, a large-scale, parallelized framework for fully kinetic plasma modeling.

Education

Ph.D., Astronautical Engineering, University of Southern California, 2023

M.S., High-performance Computing, University of Southern Califorina, 2021

B.E., Aerospace Engineering, Beihang University, 2017

Research Interests

Spacecraft Electric Propulsion
Space Environment
Plasma Physics and Engineering
Computational Plasma Physics
High Performance Computing

Selected Publications

“Vlasov Simulations of Electric Propulsion Beam” C. Cui and J. Wang, 2023, (under revision)
“Rigorously Conservative Charge and Current Deposition in 3D Cylindrical PIC” Y. Zhao, C. Cui, and Y. Hu, Computational Particle Mechanics, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 495–502, 2023
"Whistler Turbulence vs. Whistler Anisotropy Instability: Particle-in-cell Simulation and Statistical Analysis” C. Cui, S. P. Gary, and J. Wang, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, vol. 9, no. 8, p. 941241, 2022, (invited, in memorial of Dr. S. Peter Gary)
“Multi-scale Modeling of Ionic Electrospray Emission” J. Asher, Z. Huang, C. Cui, and J. Wang, Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 131, no. 1, p. 014902, 2022
“Grid-based Vlasov Simulation of Collisionless Plasma Expansion” C. Cui and J. Wang, Physics of Plasmas, vol. 28, no. 9, p. 093510, 2021
“Implementation of Neutralizing Fields for Particle– particle Simulations Using Like Charges” Y. Zhao, C. Cui, Y. Zhang, and Y. Hu, Journal of Plasma Physics, vol. 87, no. 3, 2021

Awards

Best Paper Award S3-6, the 38th International Electric Propulsion Conference, 2024
Best Research Assistant Award USC Viterbi School of Engineering, 2023
Best Student Paper Award Runner-Up 50th IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science, 2023

Featured Grants & Projects

Vlasolver a large-scale parallelized fully kinetic plasma modeling framework