Below are brief descriptions of my technical experiences. If you’d like a more traditional list of my technical roles, click the LinkedIn icon at the bottom of the page or click here.
Michigan State University Engineering Student
2011-2014
At Michigan State I studied Electrical Engineering after beginning my college career as an English Major at Western Michigan University. The adjustment was tough, but I learned which ways to study best. Because the Electrical Engineering curriculum had such vast subject areas, I had to determine a way to retain information from many differing areas of focus.
I worked on a wide array of projects during my undergraduate studies. I developed patch antennas with HFSS and ADS software in my Electromagnetics II class. In my Digital Signal Processing course I learned how to develop a speech detection filter with Matlab and Simulink that distinguished between a person saying the words “Yes” and “No”. I created microphone amplifiers and noise cancelling headphones in my Electronics Circuits class with a combination of wires, amplifiers, potentiometers, resistors and capacitors.
My favorite project was in Senior Design where I helped create a talking insulin pump with my team. The project combined all the technical skills I developed over the previous three years. We learned the importance of budgeting and working dynamic schedules to achieve our design and performance goals. We also were given several assignments in addition to completing our project that often took away from development time. This helped me learn the importance of time management, and how to successfully complete multiple tasks while under a strict deadline. You can read more about that project here.
Transmission Controls Algorithm Development Engineer
2015-2017
I thought deadlines in college were tough, but these were brutal. I worked with a talented group of individuals who rarely said “no”. When teams requested algorithm changes occur before initially agreed upon deadlines, we hardly ever wavered. I worked on transmission controls for automatic planetary transmissions used in passenger vehicles, even though I did not study many Mechanical Engineering concepts during my time in college. I had to learn all about torques and inertias fast in order to successfully contribute to the team. In addition to writing software in C, I documented every software change with detailed reports and presentations. This role taught me how to prepare documentation to be clear to stakeholders with different technical backgrounds.
I often studied source code and related physics-based material outside of work to create better algorithm designs. I believe working in this fast-paced environment helped prepare me for future roles with complex problems and safety-critical functions that require attention to detail.
Active Safety Validation Engineer
2017-Present
This role taught me the intricacies of how several electronic modules communicate with each other in a modern vehicle. I also learned how the combination of radar, sonar, and camera systems combine their collected data to work in a dynamic system that helps prevent vehicle crashes. I became fascinated with how each sensor aims to obtain the most reliable data to create the safest system to help protect customers. I also learned the importance of understanding different CAN communication protocols, and signals needing certain layers of encryption before they communicate with each other. I recalled the lessons from my college Signal Processing courses when understanding how these special encryption algorithms work.
Working in the Active Safety area has helped me to keep safety as a primary overarching goal when designing and improving new technologies.