ABOUT

I am currently a research engineer at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratories in Maryland. My work focuses on applying advanced concepts and technologies to help solve challenging problems in the sphere of air and missile defense.

My graduate research focused on using evolutionary algorithms to generate near-optimal solutions to challenging feedback control problems. I particularly enjoy experimenting with unconventional genome representations to see how they can be used to get better performance out of specific aspects of the evolutionary process.

My professional experience before graduate school focused on radar signal processing and data analysis. Together with my continued education, this has helped me develop a strong background in math (specifically statistics and differential equations), and contributed to an advanced knowledge of scientific computing languages like MATLAB and Julia.

Some of my strongest non-technical traits include the ability to learn new concepts quickly, strong presentation skills, and a genuine passion for experimentation. I am highly self-motivated and enjoy applying my knowledge to help advance the state of the art in a collaborative team environment.

Experience

Advanced Concepts Research Engineer - Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratories (2021-Present)

Graduate Research Assistant - Wright State University & University of Cincinnati (2016 - 2021)

Worked with the Air Force Research Labs to develop optimal controllers for challenging real-world problems
Introduced a new state-space based method for parameterizing feedback controllers into genomes for evolutionary algorithms
Gained valuable experience implementing and optimizing custom machine learning algorithms in MATLAB and Julia
Published multiple peer-reviewed IEEE conference and journal papers
Presented research at multiple conferences and gained feedback from other researchers in the field of evolutionary computation

Signal Processing Research Engineer - Air Force Research Labs Civilian (2014 - 2016)

Hired as part of the Department of Defense SMART scholarship
Worked with a team of experienced research engineers to improve the signal processing capabilities of the U.S. Air Force
Specialized in data analysis and the development of new signal processing algorithms
Worked with hardware engineers to build high bandwidth data collection systems
Processed large amounts of data in order to generate human readable reports

Software Engineering Intern - Lockheed Martin (2012 - 2014)

Performed extensive regression testing on simulated aircraft maintenance trainers
Gained experience in the software development pipeline and Subversion and Git
Worked directly with subject matter experts to ensure the simulation was accurate
Worked with experienced engineers to help resolve hardware and software bottlenecks