Accelerate Wind looking for a post-doctoral fellowship through the American 
Society for Engineering Education’s Innovative Post-doctoral Entrepreneurial 
Research Fellowship (I-PERF), which funds up to a two year post-doctoral 
fellowship. We’re seeking external flow computational fluid dynamics experts or 
wind turbine design experts who have earned a PhD in the last 7 years in a 
National Science Foundation-supported STEM discipline to join our team through 
this fellowship opportunity.

About Accelerate Wind:
Accelerate Wind is an early-stage startup, focused on helping commercial 
buildings affordably reach their renewable energy goals. Today we do this 
through our edge of roof wind turbine which uses modern airfoil shapes to take 
advantage of the fact that wind speeds are naturally faster at the edges of the 
roof than other parts of the roof. Our system has been designed alongside 
scientists at Argonne National Lab, and funded by the National Science 
Foundation, US Department of Energy, NYSERDA, and many others over the course of 
our research and development. A core piece of our design involves validated 
computational fluid dynamics models which allow us to use modern airfoil shapes 
to direct wind coming over the edge of a building towards a wind turbine.

This is an opportunity to get involved with a small startup team at an exciting 
time and explore whether the entrepreneurial world may be a good fit for you. 
We’d love to find someone who could be a potential long term team member as 
well! If you’re looking to get involved at an early stage and have a meaningful 
impact on a small company, this role may be for you.

Our team is passionate about sustainability, customer-focused, and looking to 
develop scalable solutions to climate change.

Job Description:
With guidance from the management team, you will lead development of 
computational fluid dynamics modeling processes throughout your fellowship. We 
have a baseline setup and best practices that we have developed in Ansys Fluent 
for 2D and 3D modeling of our system. You will evolve this baseline setup to 
allow us to rapidly iterate through a number of wind and terrain-related 
scenarios. This may include expanding the model to be able to operate on the 
cloud, refining processes for meshing and analysis, or investigating alternative 
software options. Computational power and required software will be provided by 
Accelerate Wind for all work.

Following refinement of this setup, you will work to analyze individual 
scenarios and optimize our design to maximize power production and LCOE for 
varying wind conditions. This step will involve both creative design work and 
work to optimize the run time and efficiency of the CFD models. This task has 
the ability to contribute significantly to Accelerate Wind’s product development 
and make a meaningful difference.

Qualifications:
Experienced in external flow computational fluid dynamics

Preference for familiarity with Ansys Fluent, though proficiency in other tools 
may also qualify

Experience modeling large systems, such as flows around buildings.

Skilled in optimizing work flows with up to 20 million cells

Excited about working in a dynamic, quick-paced startup environment

Able to work independently and comfortable analyzing problems and defining 
direction amidst uncertainty

Skilled at taking complex problems with many parameters and simplifying them to 
their base components in ways that lead to clear, compelling solutions.

Interest in entrepreneurship, fast-paced startup culture, and making a 
difference in our sustainability challenges