Rate My Professor Rafic Ajaj

Prior to joining Khalifa University, Dr. Ajaj served as an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the United Arab Emirates University from 2017 to 2019 and as an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) of Aerospace Structures at the University of Southampton from 2013 to 2017, during which he was seconded to Airbus Operations Limited in the United Kingdom for one year. From 2009 to 2013, he worked as a Research Assistant in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Bristol and Swansea University. His research focuses on VTOL aircraft, morphing wings, aircraft and UAV design, flight mechanics, aeroelasticity, and adaptive structures. In 2015, he received a Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Secondment and was granted a patent with Airbus UK (US11203410B2). He is listed among Stanford University’s Top 2% Most Influential Scientists for single-year impact from 2022 to 2025 and career-long impact in 2025. Dr. Ajaj is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the United Kingdom since 2015 and received the Boeing UK Prize for the best master’s research project in aerospace engineering in 2009 as well as the Faculty of Engineering Award for the Most Outstanding Student in Integrated Aerospace Systems Design at the University of Bristol in 2009. He is a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, serving on the AIAA Adaptive Structures Technical Committee and the RAeS Membership Committee. He also serves on the editorial boards of Aerospace and the International Review of Aerospace Engineering.