ENG NEERING Highlights 2019
News Briefs National Leader for Undergrad Engineering: For 2018–2019, HMC’s engineering program ranked No. 1 in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges 2019, tied with Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Harvey Mudd’s ranking is among colleges that offer a bachelor’s or master’s as the top degree in engineering. The College has tied for first place four out of the past five years. The engineering department was also recognized in the “Best in the Specialties” section, coming in at No. 4 for electrical/electronic/communications engineering, No. 5 for civil engineering and No. 5 for computer engineering.
Nancy Lape with students
Update from the Department Chair It is my pleasure to serve as interim department chair while Liz Orwin ’95 enjoys her sabbatical and ACE Fellowship (see page 4). We are excited to fill you in on all of the advances in the department. We continue to challenge ourselves to remain relevant, rigorous and innovative, and I hope that this newsletter will provide you with evidence of our progress. We have many exciting additions to our program, including people, curriculum and space. We are thrilled to welcome two new faculty members, Josh Brake and Steven Santana ’06 (both profiled in this newsletter) and one new staff member, machine shop Manager Drew Price (page 2). In the academic year 2018–2019, we offered new courses in Biomaterials, Machine Learning, Leadership and Risk Taking, Micro- and Nano-fluidics, Corporate Environmental Strategy and Performance Measurement, and Music Signal Processing. This year, we will offer new courses in Mechanical Design, Signal Processing, Modeling, and Classification, and a revision of E205/206 that will center on autonomous vehicles. As for space, the College broke ground for the Scott A. McGregor Computer Science Center this summer, and we are eagerly awaiting the future makerspace that will be part of that building. This studio space will be designed for hands-on, creative activities and will allow the school to grow its design and manufacturing curricula. Students tackling project work from any discipline and for Clinic thesis, research, clubs, etc., will be able to come together to create in the makerspace. In this newsletter, we include updates from a wide array of alumni. We want to send a special thank you to everyone who responded to our call for updates and advice. We always love to hear from you, so please stay in touch! Nancy Lape Professor of Engineering and Interim Chair, Department of Engineering
Engineering Students Win Global Competition: After winning top honors at the regional student case competition in March, a team of HMC students went on to win the Association for Supply Chain Management Global Case Competition in September. Kash Gokli, professor of manufacturing practice and Engineering Clinic director, assembled the team with students from his course Management of Technical Enterprise. Bohan Gao ’19, Charles Dawson ’19, Ryan Haughton ’19 and Lydia Sylla ’19, recipients of the Henry E. and Gayle Riggs Fellowship in Engineering Management, rose to the top of a field of 277 teams—representing 140 schools and 26 countries—each tackling a challenging business case from Deloitte’s supply chain practice. Alumni Association 2019 Awards: Annual awards given by the Alumni Association Board of Governors (AABOG) recognize impact on Harvey Mudd College and service to society. Awards were presented May 4 to 13 individuals, including these engineering alumni. (continued on page 2)
Mudd Design Workshop: “How Process Matters” Event honors legacy of Clive Dym
Great design in engineering is more than an inspiration and an outcome. It’s a process that is critical for students to master if they want to work at the top of their profession. Last spring, engineers, designers and educators gathered at the 11th Clive L. Dym Mudd Design Workshop, “Design Education and Practice: How Process Matters,” to reflect on the meaning of process in design; discuss stages and aspects of design processes; and compare approaches to teaching, learning and practicing engineering design. “We talked about how you teach a process and what it means for a process to be applied effectively rather than circumvented,” says Gordon Krauss, the Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design and workshop organizer. The three-day gathering drew 62 participants from top engineering programs who enjoyed more than 25 presentations. The event included poster discussions and six themed sessions: Measuring the Individual in the Design Process, Reflection in the Design Process, Inclusive Design Process Education, Design Pedagogy Approaches, Communication and Feedback, and Tools to Improve the Design Process. Keynote speakers were Cindy Atman from the University of Washington, who discussed how designers work and solve problems in her talk “What the hell is process?” and Barbara Tversky of Columbia Teachers College and Stanford University, who talked about the psychology of design and how people process information. Mudd Design Workshops were launched by the Department of Engineering in 1997 to bring together design educators, practitioners and researchers to discuss issues in design and engineering education. The event is named in honor of Clive L. Dym, who was the Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design (1991– 2012), chair of the engineering department (1999–2002) and director of HMC’s Center for Design Education (1995–2012). He died in 2016. “I think this is a really nice part of Clive’s legacy here,” said Krauss. It’s great to see people remaining involved and excited about the workshop. I’m grateful that the College and department have continued to support this. It’s a real service to the design education community, and it’s incredibly exciting to see such positive responses from my colleagues.” Krauss was equally thrilled to have engineering students join well-established researchers to make presentations. Sitoë
Mudd Design Workshop participants
Thiam ’19 presented the paper “Is it Really Quantity or Quality for Peer Feedback?” and Tiffany Madruga ’19 presented “Look at it This Way: Reviewer Perspective During Design Review Feedback and Impact on Comment Quality.” Michael Guzman ’20 and Huey Fields ’20 presented the poster “Net Promoter Score Style Weekly Feedback Impact on Introductory Design Teams.” “This was a great opportunity for the students to sit among their future peers if they want to proceed in the design field, especially if they want to be in design education,” Krauss says. “They knocked it out of the park.” Each student also sat on a panel with experts in their fields to answer questions from the audience. Madruga says, “Following my presentation, several interested individuals from different institutions expressed interest on wanting to work on this project, which was amazing because it emphasized the importance of the work. These people provided interesting insights about the problem that we had not really thought about before, including ideas of using machine learning to automate comment monitoring and scaling the application to allow students to compare their work across classes. “I loved being able to hear about all of the different ways that design could be applied across disciplines,” says Madruga, who helped organize the workshop. “Being able to not only listen to the interesting research conducted by these individuals but also to interact with them on a more personal level during social events during the conference was the most enjoyable aspect because it allowed me to more deeply understand why they were so passionate about the research they were conducting.”
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News Briefs (continued from page 1)
Receiving the Outstanding Alumni Award are Mitch Hefter ’79 and Donald Simkins ’74/75. Hefter has played a major role in setting entertainment technology standards, promoting electrical safety and developing certification for entertainment industry electricians. Simkins transformed the field of U.S. Intelligence with his work on emitter location algorithms and mitigation of radio signal interference for the National Reconnaissance Office. The Lifetime Recognition Award was presented to Robert De Pietro ’69, an emeritus member of the HMC Board of Trustees (1997–2012) and past member of both the Engineering Department Visitors Committee and Alumni Association Board of Governors (2012–2018). His family has endowed both The Frank and Frances De Pietro Fellowship Program in Civil Engineering, which supports undergraduate research opportunities under the directorship of Ziyad Duron ’81. Machine Shop: Drew Price joined HMC as machine shop manager in October. He has over 10 years of experience with complex design, fabrication and validation testing projects in the research, aerospace and manufacturing industries. While at Northwestern (B.S. mechanical engineering), he founded and served as head engineer and frame and suspension captain of the Formula SAE Northwestern Racing team. Associate Dean: In fall 2019, Chris Clark, professor of engineering, began a three-year term as the associate dean of faculty for research and experiential learning.
Solar Factory Startup
Clinic students are bringing solar energy to local households, creating jobs and cutting carbon emissions
The CLGP Team
“Most manufacturing Clinics take an existing factory and make it a little more profitable or a little faster or improve it in some way,” says Christopher McElroy ’19. “Instead, we worked with a blank slate with the goal of manufacturing solar panels.” Along with team members and fellow seniors Nate Smith, Giulia Castleberg, Priscilla Chu and Jacquelyn Aguilera (Pitzer) and guided by Kash Gokli, professor of manufacturing practice and Engineering Clinic director, McElroy helped design a world-class solar panel factory. They produced an optimal plant layout, outlined detailed workstations and determined which specific machines, tools and equipment were needed. In order to understand the process and the technology, the students began by making a solar panel. They then toured solar panel manufacturing plants to see how the process worked on a larger scale and to determine which machines and materials were needed. Their work included preparing a financial analysis, sourcing material suppliers and designing a replicable factory floor layout. In June 2019, the State of California approved $2.1 million in budget funding for the construction of the facility; production is set to begin in 2020. The team estimates that the factory will produce 200 middle-class manufacturing and construction jobs. The first production goal is to build and install 6,000 photovoltaic systems on low- to moderate-income homes in the local area, which could save these homeowners $6.5 million in energy costs each year.
“That’s real, added disposable income that will now be spent here, locally, on goods and services,” says Clinic liaison Devon Hartman, president and CEO of Claremont Pomona Locally Grown Power and CHERP Inc. “It’s the most powerful local economic stimulus we can create.” The 6,000 new systems will reduce carbon emissions by 26,700 metric tons per year, making it the least-expensive carbon mitigation program of its kind in California. “Our goal with this initial factory is to take Claremont and Pomona to net-zero carbon emissions and to establish them as a national model for energy efficiency and renewable energy, proving that we can create sustainable energy and sustainable economics by focusing all efforts on stimulating our local economy, bringing back middle-class manufacturing jobs and seriously addressing our environmental justice issues,” Hartman says. “I am so glad to see our students making an impact on society while learning and applying their technical and professional skills. This aligns beautifully with the College’s mission statement,” says Gokli.
Related video: A Smarter Solar Panel http://bit.ly/CherpHMC19
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Krauss Awarded Fulbright Scholarship Gordon Krauss, Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design, was named a Fulbright Scholar, and will live and teach in Tyrol, Austria during spring 2020. He’ll participate in the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program at the Management Center of Innsbruck, an entrepreneurial school well aligned with Krauss’s interests. In addition to teaching courses in engineering design and/or new product development, Krauss will continue research on an online peer feedback design review tool he’s developed with his HMC research students.
Buy a Robot Update Last year, we launched a Buy a Robot campaign to support the students in E79, our revised Introduction to Engineering (Baby Stems) course. Many thanks to those who bought a virtual, digital robot; we now have virtual robots with excellent names like “Boaty” and “McBoatface” floating around the virtual tank! Each robot gift spins off enough funding each year to purchase supplies for a student to build one robot as part of the endowed engineering curriculum innovation fund. If you are interested in investing in current and future innovation in HMC’s engineering curriculum, we invite you to purchase (and name!) your own virtual robot with a gift of $5,000. To give via credit card, visit hmc.edu/give and specify “Buy a Robot” in the “If ‘Other,’ Please Specify” box after entering the amount of your gift. In the “Comments” box, please specify the name of your robot (limit of nine characters). You can also call 1.844.GIVE.HMC (844.448.3462). If you prefer to contribute by mail, you can make a check out to “Harvey Mudd College” and specify “Buy a Robot” in the memo field; the Office of Stewardship and Events will then contact you regarding the robot’s name.
Liz Orwin Named ACE Fellow
The American Council on Education (ACE) selected Elizabeth Orwin ’95, as an ACE Fellow for academic year 2019–2020. During her year at the California Institute of Technology, Orwin will observe and work with the president and other senior officers, attend decision-making meetings and focus on issues of mutual interest. She’ll also visit other campuses and higher education-related organizations.
Following nomination by the senior administration of their institutions and a rigorous application process, 39 Fellows were selected this year. Established in 1965, the ACE Fellows Program is designed to strengthen institutions and leadership in American higher education by identifying and preparing faculty and staff for senior positions in college and university administration. HMC Associate Professor of Mathematics Talithia Williams was an ACE Fellow for academic year 2015–2016. Orwin, the James Howard Kindelberger Professor of Engineering and department chair, is also is director of the Engman Fellowship Program in Bioengineering, which trains students in biomedical engineering research and device design. Her lab’s main research focus is in the area of tissue engineering, specifically applied to the study
and development of an artificial corneal construct. In addition to teaching courses in engineering design and engineering systems, Orwin has developed courses and programming in biomedical engineering. She has served as advisor for Harvey Mudd’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers as well as a mentor to many women engineers. In 2017, she received the Orange County Engineering Council’s Distinguished Educator Award and President’s Award. At the conclusion of the fellowship year, Fellows return to their home institutions with new knowledge and skills that contribute to capacity-building efforts, along with a network of peers across the country and abroad.
work can help generate more accurate, more complete and less-expensive optical images of tissue samples. The investigation of ways to extract information from scattered light in tissue coupled with work on computational microscopy make up the focus of his new lab, which will be equipped with lasers, cameras, microscopes, computers and spatial light modulators to enable Mudd students to get involved in the development of nextgeneration optical microscopes. With student researchers, he’ll work on developing methods to noninvasively focus light deep inside tissue, thus creating new tools and measurement schemes to make sensitive measurements of key biological markers, such as blood flow. Such measurements can help determine which parts of the brain are being activated, how fast blood is traveling or when certain neurovascular events occur, for example. By using scattered light to “tease out information deep inside tissue,” he explains, we have the potential to make functional MRI-like imaging cheaper and more accessible. Brake will introduce students to methods such as wavefront shaping (a class of techniques used to reclaim scattered light), optical phase conjugation, and Fourier ptychographic microscopy, a microscopy
technique which enables wide field-of-view, high-resolution imaging that was developed in his PhD lab at Caltech. Brake’s enthusiasm for research and the potential of biophotonics to improve people’s lives extends to his teaching. For his first class, he taught Microprocessorbased Systems: Design and Applications (E155 or “MicroPs,” as it is affectionately called by students), an advanced technical elective where students apply their digital design skills using programmable logic and microcontrollers. The final assignment requires students to use a microcontroller and a field-programmable gate array along with a piece of new hardware they haven’t used before to build a device that is “fun or useful.” “I love working one-on-one with students and am passionate about seeing each of my students thrive as individuals,” says Brake, who especially enjoys helping students build and debug hardware. “As someone who has gone through the struggle and experienced the joy of learning new and complex concepts many times myself, I want to help guide students as they pursue their own journeys of learning.”
NEW FACULTY
Josh Brake Lights the Way
New classes in biophotonics combine biology and optics. Ever wonder why your hand glows red when you shine a flashlight through it? Or how this is connected to the fact it’s tough to see through fog? The same physical phenomenon—optical scattering—is behind both. To learn more, we turn to Josh Brake, assistant professor of engineering, who is teaching students about biophotonics, the study of the science at the intersection of optics and biology that is increasingly playing a role in biomedical diagnostics and therapies. At Caltech where he earned his PhD in electrical engineering, Brake worked on developing new tools to see deep into scattering media, like biological tissue, and on applying these tools to biomedical challenges in the life sciences and neuroscience. This
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NEW FACULTY
Santana’s Priority: Improving the Human Condition
Students are designing microfluidic devices and synthetic tissues. Making a positive impact on a community is important to Steven Santana ’06, and he’s spent his educational career gathering the knowledge and skills to do just that. The engineering and Spanish alumnus has a master’s in education (Loyola Marymount University) and a doctorate in mechanical engineering (Cornell University). He’s worked as a math teacher in Los Angeles and has designed a program for Denver Public Schools in Colorado to help all students get access to higher education opportunities and meaningful careers. As a doctoral researcher, he examined the use of microfluidics to isolate and study cancer biomarkers and designed microfluidic devices for this purpose. Teachable Moment When considering the faculty position at Harvey Mudd, Santana saw it as a great opportunity to impact yet more students while creating solutions to improve human health. Santana joined the faculty as a visiting professor in 2018 and became an assistant
professor in 2019. During this time, he developed a microfluidics and nanofluidics course, which looks at fluid mechanics, chemistry and physics and how these fields connect to device design. “My class pulls heavily from subjects students have already covered,” says Santana. “I can rely on the background content they learned in the Core, and students can jump right in and apply that knowledge to fluid mechanics and microfluidic device design.” Santana also runs a microfluidics and biomaterials lab in which students design microfluidic devices and synthetic tissues. In graduate school, he used such devices to
of their heart tissue has “Part died, but what if you could take stem cells directly from this person and do something to the stem cells so that they could be programmed to become muscle cells? capture metastatic cancer cells, and now he’s working on engineering small biomaterials to program cell behavior. To explain the research’s importance, Santana uses the example of someone who has suffered a heart attack. “Part of their heart tissue has died, but what if you could take stem cells directly from this person and do something to the stem cells so that they could be programmed to become
Santana enjoys engaging with students and advancing topics of human health.
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muscle cells? Then you can put them into this same person whose heart tissue has died, and you have a way for them to regenerate tissues.” Students in Santana’s lab work on the foundational science behind this question. He uses microfluidic devices to make very small tissues about the diameter of a human hair, loads them up with cells and varying chemical and mechanical signaling factors and measures the way the cells respond. “I love that I can do research to answer interesting questions and advance topics of human health, while at the same time work directly with talented and curious students and watch them have those great ah-ha moments,” says Santana. “There are few schools that are high-caliber where you can do both of those things well, and that’s why Harvey Mudd is such a compelling place.”
Fish Out of Water
Can we replicate biological propulsion?
Leah Mendelson grew up in Owego, New York, down the road from where IBM was founded, surrounded by engineering companies like Lockheed Martin, whose outreach insured they were well-known at local schools. It’s no wonder she went on to study mechanical engineering. But the tie to her interest in fluid mechanics? Mendelson notes her many years as a competitive swimmer. Today, as a fluid mechanics researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Engineering, Mendelson looks at methods for instrumentation and flow field measurement. But she also focuses on biological propulsion— studying fish and trying to model some of their behavior in mechanical systems, such as underwater vehicles. While a PhD student at MIT, she studied jumping fish, like archerfish, which are able to propel themselves a distance of a couple of times their size out of the water. “What’s cool about this behavior is that they do it from right below the surface,” says Mendelson. “They don’t have
a running start. All that power to propel themselves, all that acceleration has to be done in a limited space.” Students in Mendelson’s lab work on reproducing the trends fish exhibit to have a better understanding of the physics behind the behavior and to see if it would be useful to replicate. “With the rise of unmanned robotics, suddenly it doesn’t seem so crazy to have something that could function in both water and air,” Mendelson says. “But we need a strategy for getting between the two. So we’re looking to see if replicating fish behavior might be a viable way to do that.” Mendelson’s own educational experience at Olin College, a small engineering and STEM school in Massachusetts, is what inspired her to come to Harvey Mudd, a similar institution on the West Coast, to teach. “I felt a lot of the skills I had when I graduated—the things I knew how to do in a lab, the way I went about solving problems—I had those skills because I went through a small, student-centered curriculum,” Mendelson says. “I benefited from having those things in my own education, and I wanted to be able to provide that same experience to other engineering students.” Mendelson joined Harvey Mudd in 2017 and now teaches Continuum Mechanics, an
Leah Mendelson (center) works with students in her lab.
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introductory solid and fluid mechanics course, and Introduction to Engineering Design (E4), a project-based class for first- and secondyear students. Mendelson is also developing a course in mechanical design, which will launch in spring 2020 and will take the skills learned in her two previous classes and apply them to building mechanisms. “The thing I love the most about teaching is when something finally comes together for
thing I love the most about “The teaching is when something finally comes together for students: some piece of a research project or assignment where they step back and see what they really accomplished. students: some piece of a research project or assignment where they step back and see what they really accomplished,” says Mendelson. “Most of the time, students are so focused on achieving the end result that they don’t always realize how many skills they had to draw from and how many different tools they had to utilize. That moment when they do is always a fun experience.”
How to Build an Airplane
David Harris provides a riveting opportunity.
Harvey Mudd College students are entering the final phases of building a Vans RV-7A experimental airplane under the direction of David Harris, Harvey S. Mudd Professor of Engineering Design. During the 2018–2019 academic year, the team test-mounted the wings, empennage and other systems. The engine and selected avionics were built, and the interior was selected for the plane. Harris, along with four HMC students, Joseph Anderson ’21, Laura Gordon ’21, Sabrina Shen ’21 and Yuki Wang ’22, and Harris’ son, Abraham, logged over 5,000 work hours on the plane during summer 2019 and marked a number of milestones. During the first five weeks, they concentrated on assembly, including building the sliding canopy, firewall forward and avionics. Gordon made “the big cut” to the plexiglass bubble to separate the sliding canopy and the windshield. “I think the most exciting and terrifying part was we basically had to cut [the canopy] into two pieces,” Gordon says. “It’s explicitly known as the hardest, most important, don’t-screw-this-up-if-you-don’t-want-to-buyanother-$5,000-canopy cut.” The canopy vendor Vans usually recommends screwing the canopy to the frame, but the team opted to use adhesive, to avoid accidentally cracking the plexiglass. “Sabrina and Laura experimented to find the right recipe for SikaFlex adhesive and bonded the canopy,” Harris says. On June 24, the team moved the plane from the Parsons basement to a hangar at Cable Airport in Upland, where the plane will remain until the build is finished.
Students assemble parts of the plane in the Parsons basement before bringing it upstairs and taking it to a Cable Airport hangar.
Harris says the opportunity to work in the hangar has been beneficial to the team, citing the location of the hangar, which faces the runway. The team has had the opportunity to learn more about other types of aircraft and tour some planes at the airport. The team has mounted avionic boxes, completed fiberglass work, mounted the engine and attached the tail and fairings. “This is a totally different learning experience because you get to create something that you’re proud of and you know it’s going to be around for awhile,” says Anderson, who has focused on drilling the firewall and mounting systems in addition to helping prepare the landing gear for the plane.
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“At the end of the team’s July build, we have much of the aircraft together, but still have significant items remaining,” Harris says. During fall 2019, tasks included reattaching the wings, testing electrical systems, closing the frontop and attaching the windshield. After riveting the cowling of the plane, the team will be able to reassemble the interior. In addition to Harris, the team’s mentors have included Alex Mouschovias, a Clinic liaison, Tim Cook, a retired Boeing chief engineer, and Fred LaForge, the EAA technical counselor at Cable Airport.
ALUMNI PROFILE
The Entreprofessor
Benson Tsai ’06 combines two interests to create a rewarding career. Inspired by his parents and the Harvey Mudd faculty, Benson Tsai ’06 was intrigued by two career options: entrepreneur and professor. Tsai grew up in Hacienda Heights, where his mother started one of the first Chinese schools in the region, and his father ran an import/export picture frame business. In choosing HMC, Tsai stayed close to home while delving into chemical engineering, something he explored further as a transportation analysis intern at Sandia National Laboratories. Harvey Mudd how-to “While I had an understanding of how to run a business from my parents, HMC gave me the skills to do what I needed to do,” explains Tsai. “I took Gary Evans’ Enterprise and the Entrepreneur class, which exposed me to how Silicon Valley venture-backed startups worked. Professor Spjut’s class on heat transfer was also helpful in connecting all the dots for me. I have used the technical material that I learned there extensively. Because the faculty that I was exposed to were so great, I felt that I wanted to do the same with teaching.” Tsai pursued his dream of becoming a professor by enrolling in a PhD program in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota. But sadly, Tsai’s advisor died from pancreatic cancer, prompting Tsai to rethink his career trajectory. Fortunately, another HMC alumnus, Jim Castelaz ’06 (engineering), reached out to him about working on a startup in Silicon Valley.
Electrifying startup In 2009, Tsai and Castelaz founded Motiv Power Systems, a manufacturer of electric powertrains for medium-duty commercial vehicles, such as buses, work trucks and box trucks. Motiv was recently recognized with the 2019 Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award for transportation. “At the time we founded Motiv, Tesla was just getting started,” says Tsai. “We were really at the forefront of electrification. People were still doubting that electric vehicles would be effective. To watch Motiv grow and change and to have a larger impact on society has been very fulfilling.” Career shift Impatient with what he considered a slowmoving U.S. electric vehicle market, Tsai left Motiv in 2011 and began work in Taiwan as a member of the technical staff at Lucid Motors (formerly Atieva). Lucid was working with the Chinese government, which required new trucks and heavy vehicles to be electric. Tsai relished working on electric vehicle technology on an international scale. “But, I got tired of living out of a suitcase,” he says.
company is in its infancy, but the idea is to utilize robots to do mundane, repetitive tasks while people focus on what they are good at, such as restaurant concepts and customer service. Tsai’s education, work experience, previous startup experience and HMC network connections smoothed the way for his current venture: He was able to raise seed capital on a very short timescale. Tsai is sharing what he’s learned by serving as a mentor for HMC INQ, the startup incubator for alumni. He and HMC INQ cofounder Josh Jones ’98 met at SpaceX, and Jones encouraged Tsai to become an advisor. Twice a year, startups are admitted to a weeklong program where they receive funding and guidance from mentors like Tsai. Tsai says, “I get satisfaction from helping people learn, and this probably goes back to my original career goal of being a professor, so working with HMC INQ is a natural fit for me. I’m happy if I can pass on my knowledge and help others be successful.”
’m happy if I can pass on my “ Iknowledge and help others be successful. SpaceX to the rescue. The private, U.S. aerospace manufacturer founded by Elon Musk approached Tsai about working on its spacecraft and rockets in Hawthorne, California, and he eagerly accepted. As a senior battery development engineer at SpaceX, Tsai says he drew on his HMC technical training to design new battery system architecture. A new venture But the call to return to entrepreneurism was strong, and Tsai decided to embark on a new venture. He’s now working to bring robotics and automation into restaurant kitchens to help reduce instances of foodborne illnesses and alleviate some of the labor shortages occurring in the foodservice industry. The new
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Thank You for Sharing Benson Tsai ’06 is one of 86 alumni who enthusiastically responded to the request for alumni news. Read on to find out what everyone else has been up to. The engineering department will be in touch each summer by email, or you can send updates at any time to communications@ hmc.edu.
Engineering Alumni News Michael Blasgen ’63: The time I spent at Mudd, now years ago, has served me well. I continued my education in graduate school in engineering and did research in computer and software design for another 30 years. Now retired, I continue to serve HMC as a trustee.
Patrick Rourke ’64: Got called out of retirement to work on a problem for the Navy. Formed a company, put together a team and ended up spending six years developing a general-purpose engineering software solution that can synthesize full 3-D designs for fluid systems in minutes, starting from high-level requirements only. Busy preparing to release that software as a commercial product. Totally having a ball.
James C. Bangsund ’68: Well, it’s been a bit of a jump from engineering to Lutheran pastor to overseas seminary professor (Tanzania) back to Lutheran pastor and then to retirement. A number of resulting books may be found on Amazon.com. The stateside stuff was all in San Jose, California, where we are now. We just got back from a visit to Dr. Jim (and Julie) Monson at their beautiful home just above Point Reyes Station, north of San Francisco. Life is good, filled with part-time pastoring, family, travel, concerts, theater and a bit of baseball. John Riley ’72: I volunteer two entire days at a struggling high school helping the students learn geometry. The high school is
98% Latino, and about 10% do not speak English. Fortunately, I do speak enough Spanish to communicate mathematics. I find the one-on-one instruction to be most effective. Positive feedback makes the students believe they really can do math. Unfortunately, the failure rate is around 50%, primarily due to missing assignments and tests. I believe that in retirement this is an excellent way to provide help where help is needed and make the future just a little better place.
Mark Allen ’73/74: I retired from Agilent Technologies (spun from HP) after 45 years. I now get to play, full time. Current toys include home automation, and I’m looking into 3-D printing. John Ogren ’74/75: Retired from NOAA in 2016 after 24 years building a global network to characterize how airborne particles affect climate (http:// bit.ly/OgrenNOAA19). Now working with my collaborator at the University of Puerto Rico to rebuild two field stations that were demolished by Hurricane Maria. Clare (Pitkin) Livak ’75: Retired, volunteer at Cedar Hill Girl Scout Museum, volunteer stage manager at Arlington Friends of the Drama, and spending time with my grandsons, ages 8 and 4. Jim Wall ’80: I work for MITRE Corporation. We are a federally funded research and development center, doing work for the U.S. government that other companies aren’t interested in—or at least not interested in until we show there is some viability in that area. At that point, MITRE spins off work to the private sector, if they prove they can deliver. If it’s a vital function the government needs, MITRE will continue to supply it until the private sector comes through. Specifically, I support the part of the
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Navy here in San Diego that comes under the jurisdiction of U.S. Special Operations Command. Very interesting work that I can’t otherwise say a lot about. Tod Allman ’81/82: After I finished at Harvey Mudd, I went to Talbot Seminary to learn how to become a Bible translator. Then several colleagues and I founded a new organization called All the Word Bible Translators (http://bit.ly/ Allman19). We’re a group of computational linguists, and we worked for about 25 years to develop a software system that helps translate the Bible very quickly into the languages that still need it. By about 2010, we finally had a system that works well. In 2014, my family and I moved to the Philippines, and I’ve been using the software with several languages here and in China. There are more than 7,000 languages in the world, but less than 1,000 of them have the complete Bible. Here in the Philippines, there are 175 indigenous languages, but less than 25 of them have the complete Bible. My colleagues and I are hoping that eventually our software system will help translate complete Bibles very quickly for millions of people. Kenneth Chinn ’82: A wife, three kids— Abigail, Sam and Maggie (two in high school + one in middle school)—and, I am retired after 35 years with the Boeing Company. Originally, I was going to take a year off, but I managed to prepare well for retirement, so I retired! Dave Dunaetz ’83: I’m an associate professor of leadership and organizational psychology at Azusa Pacific University (Azusa, California). My research program focuses on interpersonal processes in organizations, especially Christian organizations. Some of my recent publications have focused on pastoral narcissism, emotional attachment to churches and how social media forces affect people who attend churches. Fernando Urbina ’83/84: Celebrating five years of retirement (after working for 25 years at Apple). Ellen Laderman ’86: Currently working in the areas of privacy protection and cyber resiliency (ensuring you can still do what you need to do despite being under cyber attack).
Amanda Minieri ’86: I am a senior level software engineer by trade and have 24 years of experience in real-time embedded software engineering and development. I just received a master of science in computer science from SDSU in May 2019, focusing on object-oriented programming and design principles and distributed systems. Married for 12 years to Stephen Gabbert. We love international travel and have been south of the border many times as far as South America, to Africa, Europe, Canada, Israel and Egypt. I also love to travel domestically and have been to Florida, New England, Northern California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii and Alaska. We often go camping in our beautiful national park system and have a 24-foot sailboat locally.
Julia LF Goldstein ’88: 2019 has been a year of new experiences, including publishing my first book (Material Value: More Sustainable, Less Wasteful Manufacturing of Everything from Cell Phones to Cleaning Products) and completing my first Olympic distance triathlon. My new role as an author gives me the opportunity to conduct workshops and give talks, expanding my skills as a public speaker. I’m a member of the Woodinville Concert Band, where I play piccolo, and the associated Ah Tempo Flute Choir. Running, cycling and swimming keeps me healthy and sane. Kaia David ’89/96: These days, I’m managing the Extreme Environment Materials group at Boeing Research & Technology in Huntington Beach, California. We’re working on high-temperature and cryogenic thermal protection systems for programs including NASA’s Commercial Crew Transportation and Space Launch Systems, and developing ceramic matrix composite materials for commercial and defense propulsion applications.
Gina (Maiorana) Janke ’87: Biggest accomplishment in last 12 months: Became a Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Fellow for engineering achievements, 30+ years involvement (which started at Harvey Mudd!) and encouragement of female engineering students through local scholarship programs. Mark Sellers ’87: Since May 2017, I’ve been working at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the associate laboratories director for the Mission Assurance Division. Two new grandbabies turn one this year. My wife, Ann, and I enjoy the outdoors as we both recover from hip and knee surgeries. Sucks getting old. Doug Green ’88: I was working as the lead control system field engineer for the only nuclear power plants now being built in the U.S. in Georgia. We just moved back to Houston, and now I am engineering tecnnical lead for an ethylene cracker in Ohio. We had scheduled a cruise to Cuba, but we were trumped and just visited a few other islands. I now have permanent residency in Mexico as we have a house there.
Steve Molin ’89: New to working in the financial world as an ops engineer for Trizic Inc.
Jeff Brewer ’91: I am VP, chief architect for the Small Business and Self-Employed Group at Intuit, setting technical strategy for the QuickBooks ecosystem. In addition, I was elected to the Technical Oversight Committee for the Cloud Native Computing Foundation which oversees Kubernetes among other open-source projects. This year, I went to Barcelona to attend the Cloud Native Con/KubeCon European event. Ruth Fink-Winter ’92: Ruth is still doing Rocky Horror. This August, she’ll be combining a German course in Cologne with Rocky Horror performances in Berlin and Paris. In her spare time, she’s been taking dance classes and recently started aerial hoop in the belief that anything worth doing well is also worth doing poorly. Ellen Heian ’93: I just started at JPL in the power generation group, working on thermoelectric materials for space.
Jonathan Gay ’89: I am focusing my energy and resources on caring for the natural systems of our planet. I graze cows to improve grasslands and store carbon while restoring watersheds, soils and native plants on ranch land in Northern California. Seeing oak trees I have planted bear acorns, raising three young children and enjoying the swallows as they come back to ponds I built and tend is my way of dreaming of a healthy future for our planet. Tim Wendler ’89: I have been working in the field of environmental investigations and remediation for 30 years. I just accepted a new position with CDM Smith as a senior client service leader, focusing on business development. I am active in the community as a member of the Pasadena Planning Commission.
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Michelle ’93 and Josh Mann ’94: Michelle retired early from engineering and is managing their rental properties and taking care of their two teenage daughters. Their oldest daughter is interested in STEM and has visited and toured HMC as a possible college choice. Josh is a manager at Hewlett-Packard Inc., overseeing a team of engineers developing printing technology for commercial printing applications. Both Josh and Michelle are pursuing winemaking and considering opening a winery in the Ramona area of San Diego County. Nathan Wiedenman ’93: I retired from the Army in 2014, after some great R&D assignments at West Point, overseas and at DARPA. Spent a few years leading an office for entrepreneurship at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then moved to Rochester, Minnesota, last year to work for Mayo Clinic. I’m part of Mayo’s Office of Translation to Practice, where I help discover, evaluate and support new medical innovations for broader adoption and potential commercialization.
Hanna Ma ’94: After graduating from Mudd, I chose an atypical career path and went into K–12 education. I taught second through fifth grades in all subjects for 10 years, including drama. I received a master’s in educational leadership and became a middle/elementary assistant principal and principal. Now for about six years, I oversee assessment, research and evaluation for our school district in Northern California Bay Area. What I do now combines my passion and skills for student learning and well-being, data and technical systems, and problem-solving. Jose Mota ’95: I moved with my family to the Netherlands last year to start a new role as upstream GM for Safety Leadership in Shell. It has been a fascinating experience working on the behavioral and cultural elements of many Shell ventures across the globe to support them in delivering their operations safety. On the personal side, my wife Norma, and my two kids, Natalia (12) and Sebastian (9), love the Netherlands, and we bike everywhere! Robert Rakowsky ’96: I have been with startup called Echodyne for the past four years now. Our technology allows us to build small-cost effective radars for autonomous and security applications for commercial market. Raul Martinez ’97: After 15 years of practicing law, I recently opened my own law firm, specializing in intellectual property, including patent and trademark law. Craig Meyer ’97: Quit job. No woman or kids. Had great touring bicycle made. 3-D-printed some nifty accessories for it. Rode a little in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, and then a lot in Cambodia, a lotlot in Thailand, and now preparing for a Laos mountain-road a%%-whipping. Goal is to make it through Vietnam and China and into Russia alive and out of jail. Learning about myself and others, the differences between peoples and cultures, and to appreciate and cherish my own. So far it’s not even about riding the bike, but rather about the people I meet and hijinks I get into when I’m off it. www.youtube.com/craigrmeyer. Now feverishly designing new and better touring bicycles. Elizabeth Johansen ’01: Joined biotech start-up Vaxess Technologies in January 2019. Vaxess is pioneering silk technologies to enable a shelf-stable smart patch for
medication delivery and a device for remote blood collection. I look forward to the positive impact Vaxess technologies will have in low- and middle-income countries where cold chain is expensive and impractical. Amanda Malone ’02: I am the chief scientific officer (CSO) of a biotech company in Victoria, BC. We are developing sustainerelease drug delivery platforms for the treatment of various indications, including osteoarthritis and surgical site infections. We have shown proof of concept of our lead asset, an intra-articular injection for the treatment of arthritis pain, in people and are gearing up for a larger dose-ranging efficacy study. To get ready for the upcoming study, we have spent significant effort scaling and optimizing our manufacturing processes to ensure we have a well-controlled test product. As CSO, I am in charge of managing all aspects of the company’s scientific development, including early formulation, pre-clinical testing, manufacturing and clinical testing. Annie and Sean Kao ’02: The family is relocating to Northern California for an exciting new opportunity as Annie takes on a new role as vice president of engineering for Simpson Strong-Tie, a leader in the innovation, design and manufacturing of construction solutions for residential and commercial projects. Sean serves as technical director for Jariet Technologies, a startup company leading firmware and software development to enable customer solutions for custom highly integrated ADC/ DAC solutions. They are proud parents to Isaac, Nora and Lincoln and enjoy cheering them on in all their pursuits.
Antonio Medrano ’02: After both presenting our research at the IWUOR conference in Nagoya, Japan, my PhD advisor Rick Church and I climbed to the top of Mt Fuji, July 2019. Trevor Gile ’03: What do you do with your one-year-old daughter? Fly her to New Zealand of course! It was an amazing
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adventure with the family. Now it’s back to the real world exploring challenges at work in domains I’ve barely touched; that sounds familiar. But, if you’re into automated hardware/software co-optimization and deployment to custom embedded systems, I have a job for you. Pick-up basketball games have returned as a weekly activity. Not quite as intense as the good ol’ days, and definitely not as much jumping, but it does surface a bit of nostalgia for them. If you’re ever in San Diego, you’re always welcome. Markus Ong ’03: My wife, Rachel, and I have just celebrated our one-year anniversary and the arrival of our twin babies Naomi and Matthew. We live in Spokane, Washington, near the Whitworth University campus where I am an associate professor in the Engineering and Physics Department, which has been updating the engineering curriculum to get ABET accreditation for a general engineering program. I’ll be teaching the first cohort new upper-division engineering classes starting this fall.
Tommy Leung ’05: I co-founded countlove.org with my partner, Nathan Perkins. We’ve documented over 21,000 protests reported by local news sources in the United States since January 2017. Over the last two and a half years, we’ve built machine learning tools to help us review over 70,000 news articles, and we’ve built tools to help citizens, journalists, policymakers and researchers study temporal and geographic trends in United States protests. For example, since January 2017, Americans protested most for women’s rights, greater gun control and more compassionate immigration policies. We occasionally write about our findings in the Washington Post and present at conferences, and we continue to seek ways to advocate for social causes with our data. Professionally, I’m an engineering director at DuckDuckGo, a private search engine that doesn’t track its users. I often solve problems related to understanding user preferences under the constraint of having zero user-specific data.
UCSC. After graduating in 2013, I completed my transition to the dark side by joining Google as a software engineer. I am still at Google as a senior software engineer, working in the technical infrastructure division. Recently, I joined the board of trustees of Harvey Mudd College as a way to give back to the school that gave so much to me. When I’m not being a board member or a software engineer, I enjoy life with my wife and dog in the surfing beachside town of Santa Cruz.
Jim Castelaz ’06: Evie Castelaz was born Aug. 4, 2018, and is crawling happily among her siblings. (Clara 7, Cole, 5, and Rory, 3) In an effort to be the most prolific alum, we have baby no. 5 on the way, due around Christmas. Hailey and I are coming up on our eight-year anniversary while the company I started, Motiv, celebrated its 10-year anniversary. I hired a CEO, enabling a move into the CTO role where I am enjoying “freeing fleets from fossil fuel.”
Michaela Reagan ’06: I am the PI of the Reagan Lab at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Scarborough, Maine. We were recently awarded an American Cancer Society Research Scholar grant to study multiple myeloma growth and evolution within the bone marrow. I also just gave birth to my first child on May 7, Aiden Patrick Miller. My husband, Joel, and I are thrilled.
Diana Hawkins ’08: I’ve had an unusual journey, but I recently submitted my M.S. thesis in wine science through the University of Auckland, New Zealand. I’m off to do a wine harvest in California later this year before returning Down Under, where I hope to continue my career in the wine industry.
Badier Velji ’07: I recently was promoted to a technical project manager at Roche Sequencing Solutions in Santa Clara, California. I’ll be completing my MBA from Berkeley in December. I got married on July 20, with a group of Mudders in attendance.
Carolina de Freitas ’10: I’ve led the development of and launched a new flexible desktop platform for Berkeley Lights Inc. The Lightning Optofluidic Platform is ideal for elucidating true cell function, inventing single-cell functional assays and driving innovation. Vincent Pai ’12 designed the platform’s seminal workflow which allows users to identify T-cell functional signatures through direct visualizations of the phenotype and function of hundreds to thousands of individual T cells on a single platform in just days.
Brian Kirkpatrick ’07: We have a new kid! Harold Easton Kirkpatrick was born June 25 and is our third child. In the meantime, I’m working on some fun technologies for space surveillance and satellite operations problems, including game engines for modeling and simulation, that have led to several papers and patents. In our spare time, we’re enjoying the Orange County life! Alice Clifton ’07: I’m a PhD candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the history and sociology of technology and science. My dissertation studies the development of U.S. engineering cultures and white masculinity.
Sheldon Logan ’06: After four lovely years (best years of my life) at Harvey Mudd in the engineering department, I started to slip to the dark side of computer science by pursuing a PhD in computer engineering at
Janet Komatsu ’09: I’ve joined Profusa, a biotech startup that is pioneering tissueintegrating biosensors for real-time monitoring of the body chemistry. The technology can detect and continuously transmit actionable medical-grade data for personal and medical use.
Amy Jarvis ’07: Amy recently graduated with distinction with her MBA from Cornell Tech. Post-graduation, she is working as a product manager for Zillow on the Zillow Offers, Machine Learning team in Seattle.
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Nathan Jones ’10: After graduation, I entered the military and am still serving on active duty nearly 10 years later. I’ve had the chance to visit, be deployed to or be stationed in South Korea, Afghanistan, Chad, Germany and both sides of the continental U.S. Most recently, I was accepted to become a junior rotating faculty member at West Point and was instructed to get my master’s degree prior to that. I decided to attend North Carolina State University, from which I’ll receive a master’s degree in
machine, a multi-tool 3-D printer, I am thrilled to be releasing the design into other hands as open source.
electrical engineering next May. At NC State, I’ve tried to focus my studies in embedded systems. I’m happily married to the former Cidney Scanlon ’10, and together we have an energetic toddler named Isaac. Cassie ’11 and Greg Borish ’08: Greg has been strengthening the AP Computer Science and AP Calculus AB and BC courses at Hart High School. Cassie completed her PhD in biomedical engineering at USC and now works as a data scientist at Rho AI, developing a software to assess carbon reduction in early stage ventures. They are also preparing for the arrival of baby Borish in December.
Kristina Runas ’11: I received my M.S. and PhD in chemical engineering from USC in 2015. My research focused on biomimetic membranes and evaluation of drug permeation properties of different compositions of lipid bilayers. I moved to Oregon and started working at Intel in 2015 as a process engineer in the Lithography department. It’s been an interesting transition from my previous research, but full of challenges and opportunities to learn new techniques and solve engineering problems. I married a great guy named Matt in 2017, who happens to be the sibling of another Mudder, with Allison Wynn McReynolds ’11 as one of my bridesmaids and Cate Maddalena ’11 as the best woman. My husband and I are very happy living in Oregon with our dog (Loki) and horse (Zen), and I still get the chance to compete in the adult amateur hunters every summer. Matt and I like to spend our free time traveling, hiking and kayaking. Jenni Rinker ’11: Finished PhD in mechanical engineering from Duke University in 2016, took a post-doc in Loads and Controls section of Wind Energy department at Denmark Technical University, became researcher in 2018. Work on projects, but also mentor M.S./PhD students and teach MS course. Also sponsored unicyclist; just finished Kungsleden with a unicycle and other adventures.
Renee Gittins ’12: I’ve had a winding career path that led me from biotech to game development. Harvey Mudd prepared me well for my various pursuits, including my initial switch from system and design engineer to software development engineer. Five years ago, I formed my own game studio, developing an adventure crafting game called Potions: A Curious Tale. I’m excited to release Potions, as I’ve seen how it inspires girls with its bold, resourceful, young witch main character. In July, I was appointed as the executive director of the International Game Developers Association, the largest non-profit membership organization representing game developers in the world. While I’m still running my own studio on the side, I’m excited to be working to improve the lives and careers of all game developers. David Marangoni-Simonsen ’13: I’ve been backpacking as much as possible while working for a living at Sandia Labs in California.
Joshua Vasquez ’14: The last four years have been a romp through a few industries from robotics to automated lab instrumentation. While my work rarely had a dull moment, I wanted a more personal story than the “engineer-by-day,” so I started a journey into outfitting my garage with a few homemade machine-shop tools. The dream? To create animatronics from the comfort of my own homebrew machine shop. After a few years of this side project, I met a professor looking to bring low-cost CNC machines to new audiences for creative work, and we joined forces. In the last year, I’ve switched gears into grad school at the University of Washington helping make that idea a reality. Strangely, what started as a journey to create tools for myself has transformed into an academic adventure to create tools for many. As I close out our first
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Cody Crosby ’15: I am currently a fourth-year PhD student in the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. As a member of Dr. Janet Zoldan’s research laboratory, I am dedicated to further elucidating the effects of a stem cell’s microenvironment on the cell’s proliferation, migration and differentiation. In this endeavor, we aim to both add to our fundamental understanding of stem cell behavior while leveraging the knowledge gained to develop new stem cell therapies for patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases. I have specifically demonstrated that different physical properties of extracellular matrix (ECM)-mimicking biomaterials can influence the formation of a primitive capillary plexus from stem cellderived endothelial cells. I’m continuing to work toward developing new hybrid materials that encourage vasculogenesis/angiogenesis while faithfully reconstructing native ECM. Sophia Williams ’15: Graduate student at Stanford University in electrical engineering. I’m doing research on haptics and robotics in CHARM Lab under Professor Allison Okamura.
Ariel Willey ’15: I do sustainability consulting for green buildings! I did HVAC engineering for a couple years before realizing I wanted to have a broader hand on the whole building’s sustainability story. I’m not currently in an engineering role, and it fits me well. I help architects, engineers (civil, mechanical, electrical and plumbing), landscape architects and contractors design and build projects to meet green building certifications (LEED, fitwel, WELL and others). I use my engineering background to check the work of engineers and tell them how to fix things if necessary. We manage the whole process of certification, from early conceptual design to the end of construction, keeping all team members on track and organized.
Travis Beckman ’15: I have been diving headfirst into the world of genomics at Illumina in sunny San Diego! I am an R&D engineer on a team developing new applications of microfluidics and consumable part design in order to make next-generation sequencing cheaper, faster and more robust. I work with biologists, chemists, physicists and fellow engineers on a daily basis to design, test and evaluate concepts to determine if they are ready to be passed on to product development.
Avi Thaker ’16: Started a new job at Zume! Jessica de la Fuente ’17: After I graduated, I was hired into the Management Development Program at Bobrick Washroom Equipment. In February 2018, I transferred to their facility in Jackson, Tennessee, as a manufacturing supervisor and engineer for Privada, a high-end line with nine people reporting to me. In November 2018, I moved to become the TPF supervisor, with 23 people reporting directly to me. David Tenorio ’17: Teaching CS to members of underrepresented communities as my job, political activism (get those concentration camps closed!) and refereeing soccer as my hobbies, and I began pursuing my master’s in CS this fall! Emily Schooley ’17: I’ve been working at Applied Materials in Santa Clara for the past two years. During my time there, I’ve also been the president of the Young Professionals Network at Applied Materials for almost two years. This fall, I’ll be starting a master’s of design impact (housed within the Mechanical Engineering department) at Stanford. Oh, and I got a dog.
Sherman Lam ’16: For just over a year, I’ve been working as a mechanical engineer at Honeybee Robotics (Pasadena, California). We specialize in robotic space drilling and sample acquisition systems and work closely with NASA and JPL. A couple of my past projects focused on the research and development of grinding and dust removal tools for lunar mission proposals. I’m working on a project in collaboration with NASA and JAXA. JAXA plans to conduct a sample return mission to Phobos, and I’ve been designing and testing a pneumatic sample acquisition system that will fly on the spacecraft. So far, I love being part of the Honeybee team. I’ve also been an adamant mountain biker and climber. Among other objectives in the Sierras, Sam DeRose ’16 and I successfully climbed the faces of El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite Valley. In addition, I completed a winter ascent of Mt Whitney, Calfornia. Allie Barry ’16: Last year, I graduated with my MBA from Penn State University and recently began a new position as a global supply manager for Lucid Motors. In my new role, I work directly with our engineers to strategically source suppliers from around the world for our Motorsport battery packs and the chassis of our cutting-edge electric sedans! Through this start-up experience, I have been able to combine my engineering and business backgrounds to push the limits of technology.
Emily ’17 and Paul Jerger ’15 : Emily is a project manager at MxD, the Digital Manufacturing Institute, where she leads research teams spanning industry and academia to solve digital technology problems facing the American manufacturing sector. Through MxD, a government-funded nonprofit, she works with a broad range of industry partners, including Dow, Duracell, Raytheon and Coca-Cola. She compares her work to being a professional clinic team leader! Paul is a grad student at the University of Chicago, where his research aims to develop quantum information technologies. Specifically, he works on light-emitting atomic defects in diamond, which can function as highly sensitive detectors of magnetic fields. His recent work demonstrated how to use these defect centers to map photocurrents in monolayer materials. Viviana Bermudez ’18: After graduation, I moved to L.A. to work in management consulting. I’ve been working with entertainment, social media and healthcare clients in a project management capacity. Next, I hope to move to NYC to continue working with organizations that create a positive social impact. Alex Echeverria ’18: I’ve been working at The Boeing Company working on ASICs for satellites. Attempting to go back to grad school eventually.
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Kristin Lie ’18: I’ve been working at Millennium Space Systems in Los Angeles in the Structures group. My day-to-day work has me responsible for the analysis and test of small satellites, which I think is the coolest! I’ve been using a lot of skills from HMC engineering and learning a lot as well. Outside of work, I enjoy climbing, and I’ve been trying to improve my cooking/baking skills. Zayra Lobo ’18: For the past year, I’ve been working in Intel’s Internet of Things Group on a variety of robotics projects. I’m having a blast applying what I learned at Mudd to the real world, both technical and non-technical. My E80 skills especially have come in handy, since I’ve had to do a lot of debugging under the pressure of deadlines and demos. I even got to travel to Germany this past April and help present some Intel demos at a large industrial trade show in Hanover. This fall, I plan on pursuing my master’s in computer science at Georgia Tech with a specialization in robotics. I hope to use my degrees from Mudd and Georgia Tech to work on some cutting-edge robots in the future! Duncan Crowley ’18: I have been living and working in Pasadena, California, occasionally commuting to LAX. I enjoy biking and rollerblading around the Rose Bowl and the $3 second-run movie theater. Honestly though, I usually drive the 1.6-miles to work, but I do take the bus a lot. This summer, I am making the leap up to the Bay Area to live with my SO Sophie ’16 for the first time since Mudd. This year, I am excited to try something new with my career in the Bay, and I have my eyes set on a master’s in the next year or two, whether full-time or while working. My favorite thing that I did after graduation was to hike the Long Trail in Vermont for three weeks with fellow alums. It was just the perfect amount of time on the trail. Marissa Lee ’18: I’m going into the second year of my mechanical engineering PhD at Stanford, where I’ve taken some great courses in biomechanics, mechatronics and design (and have managed to run into Profs Srebotnjak and Libeskind-Hadas at the d.School)!
Recently, I joined the Neuromuscular Biomechanics Laboratory under Scott Delp, a member of the interdisciplinary Bio-X institute. Our group researches athlete and pathological gait to discover how we can reduce injury and improve mobility. I’m looking to contribute to sensing and interventions outside the lab (think activitymonitoring wearables and video analysis) so that we can more accurately understand and improve movement. Beyond academics, I’m involved in our American Society for Engineering Education chapter and Mechanical Engineering Women’s Group. Since graduating from Mudd, I’ve also enjoyed serving as a member of the Alumni Association Board of Governors. It’s been great regularly seeing so many friends from Mudd both in the Bay and back at Mudd!
Eyassu Shimelis ’18: After graduation, I joined Lincoln Laboratory at MIT as an assistant technical staff member. I’ve had the opportunity to work on many engaging research projects and helped develop some exciting prototypes. Working after Mudd has helped me contextualize what I learned as an engineer, and it has helped me focus my academic interests. I’m looking forward to taking a class part-time! At work, I’ve been part of some really impactful educational outreach efforts. This summer, I spent a month teaching a high school robotics class through the Beaver Works program. It’s fascinating to see how effective robotics can be at teaching young students a wide variety of scientific concepts. Outside of work, I recently learned how to sail and have enjoyed cooking and running. I’ve been fortunate to build strong friendships with Mudders (and other 5Cers) in the Boston community, and I look forward to welcoming more!
Bella Puentes ’19: I just started work as a mechanical engineer in the testing division at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems.
Isabel Martos-Repath ’18: I’m starting my second year of graduate school at Northeastern University, where I have been working in the Analog & Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuit Laboratory. My lab is collaborating on an NIH-sponsored project to design a transceiver and implantable devices for a wireless neuronal activity monitoring system. The aim is that these implants can sense changes in magnetic fields of single or small groups of neurons and then communicate that information to neuroscientists studying the brain. Outside of school, I enjoy exploring Boston with other Mudd alumni, baking bread and playing tennis. Jacey Coniff ’18: I’ve been working at a small rocket engine start-up. I get to do everything from helping to test the actual engine to developing subcomponents and analyzing data, which makes for a very exciting work environment. In my free time, I love hiking and skiing in the mountains and playing soccer. Gabriel Quiroz ’19: After graduating, I took some time to travel and relax before starting work. I went to Vegas, Peru, Athens, Italy and Spain with my friends and family, returning to the U.S. by the end of June. Once my trip was done, I ended up packing my things and moving to the Bay Area to get ready for my job at Apple. I have been working for about three weeks as a software engineer, adjusting to life after college and work. Felipe Borja ’19: I’ve started graduate school at Virginia Tech. I’m working in the Unmanned Systems Lab here setting up a drone and flight academy in Malawi. Morgan Blevins ’19: I’m beginning the first year of my PhD program with MIT in their AeroAstro department. My research is joint with the Woods Hole Oceanography Institute, and I hope to find a way for my work to have application in both space and ocean exploration.
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Angela Sun ’19: After graduating, I’ve been working at efyian Inc., a medical diagnostic startup based out of Keck Graduate Institute (right across the train tracks). We’re developing a device that will essentially combine the accuracy of a central lab test (gain results you get when you go to a doctor and get your blood drawn) with the simplicity of an off-the-shelf test (think pregnancy strips). In my role as one of two engineers on the team, we not only develop device prototypes, but we also help with assay development as well. Casey Gardner ’19: Since graduating, I spent the summer in Boston as part of the Northeastern-HMC Summer Research Exchange. I worked on a project to optimize the design of new buildings to better and more cost-effectively withstand natural hazards, while also taking the time to explore the city. Lydia Sylla ’19: During summer, I worked at a local escape room and went hiking and volunteering with the Appalachian Mountain Club. In the fall, I moved to Boston and joined the manufacturing engineering team at Formlabs.
Giulia Castleberg ’19: David Olumese ’19 and I took a short trip up to Vancouver, BC, for a week. It was absolutely stunning (picture shows our daily view)! I returned to Santa Barbara and have been working full-time at FLIR Systems. I’ve spent my weekends enjoying the sunshine and beautiful California coast.