The Student Advisory Committee (SAC) is a group of students who work to foster student engagement in the IGTI community and improve the Turbo Expo conference every year. Towards this goal, the SAC organizes various sessions and events during the conference, provides opportunities for students to work behind the scenes with leaders in their technical area, and awards travel funds to eligible degree seeking individuals.
Meet the 2025-2026 Student Advisory Committee (SAC) Leadership Team!
Janakiraman Thiyagarajan
Chair
Janakiraman Thiyagarajan is an Industrial PhD student at KTH, Royal Institute of Technology and Traton AB, Sweden. He works with the design and development of radial compressors for Heavy Duty applications with a research focus on aerodynamic design, aero-acoustics and optimization. He was a part of the Erasmus Mundus THRUST (TurbomacHinery AeRomechanics UniverSity Training) Master program offered by KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) and University of Liege (Belgium). Prior to the Master program, he worked in the Aerospace industry in the areas of Performance of Jet engines and design of APUs after obtaining a Bachelor degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He was an active member of the Student Advisory Committee (SAC) Liaison for ASME Turbo Expo 2024, served as the Vice-Chair of SAC for ASME Turbo Expo 2025 and has been elected as the Chair of SAC for the upcoming ASME Turbo Expo 2026.
Michail Psaropoulos
Vice-Chair
Michail Psaropoulos is currently a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), Greece and Safran Tech, Paris, France. He holds a Diploma of Mechanical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. His current research focuses on the implementation of Artificial Intelligence in aircraft engines performance. Specifically, the implementation of Neural Networks to predict the engine steady-state and transient thermodynamic performance for the majority of engine architectures.
Elena Torres
Secretary
Elena Torres is pursuing a Master's Degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Central Florida with a focus on thermo-fluids. She works as a Graduate Research Assistant at UCF's Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research on various projects related to supercritical CO2 power cycles and aero-engine applications. Elena's primary Masters research is on high temperature heat pipes in high-speed aircraft and their ability to dissipate and redirect large thermal loads. Elena served as a SAC liaison for the Cycle Innovation Committee at TurboExpo 2025 and was honored to be awarded the first place poster award at TurboExpo 2024.
Marco Castaldi
Past Chair
Marco is a passionately curious, research-oriented engineer, holding double Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Politecnico di Torino and Politecnico di Milano, within the framework of the Alta Scuola Politecnica honors program. In 2022, he completed the Research Master in Fluid Dynamics at the von Karman Institute (Belgium), specializing in Turbomachinery and Propulsion. In his past research, he contributed to the investigation of Inlet Particle Separators designed for the latest generation of turboprop and turboshaft engines. He is currently a PhD student at Ghent University and von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. His current doctoral research focuses on high-fidelity multidisciplinary optimization of turbomachinery.