Early Beginnings

I became fascinated by engineering research in my early teens. At the time, I put together a magnetic propulsion experiment using a piece of Styrofoam that I found on the beach and wire from an old transformer. As I plugged my device into the wall electrical outlet, my engineering career began with a spark!!

Education

I am a Big Ten fan, having attended Northwestern University (NU) in Chicago and Penn State University (PSU). Although I attended NU for the first two years of my PhD, our entire team transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Cedars) in West-Hollywood, California, and I completed my degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). While at Cedars, I conducted my graduate research in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for breast & prostate cancer, imaging at the molecular level, with focus in hardware and software development. I received my master's in Electrical Engineering (EE) at PSU, with focus in electronic and piezoelectric material linear motors (PZT motors). I obtained a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) Engineering Certificate from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and the most fun course work I ever had in Radio Frequency (RF) Communications. I obtained my bachelor's in EE at San Diego State University (RF), with a focus in electronic circuit applications in electrophysiology and finger force measurements.

Engineering & Research

My first job as a teenager was working at Electromar as an electronic technician. I started out sweeping the shop, then moved on to programming in Basic and repairing Echo Sounders, Sonars, and Radars. It was the greatest job for an eager-to-learn engineering teenager like myself. My next jobs were with Helle Engineering, Ectron Corp, Air Force Space Surveillance System, (AFSSS) San Diego station (contractor), Cadence

Designs Systems (Cadence), and Testedge Inc (TE). As a technician at Helle Engineering, I learned to build and repair piezoelectric pingers for underwater detection and communication. Then, at Ectron, I became experienced in diagnosing, troubleshooting, and calibrating electronic circuits in Thermocouple simulators/calibrators. I also became skilled in Data Collection and Automation using HP Basic and GPIB. In my next position at the AFSSS, I learned the ins and outs of large scale remote sensing and satellite detection. I also began producing quality circuit designs, C/C++, and LabView software programs. Later, as a senior engineer at Cadence and Testedge, I became adept at Test Engineering with mixed signal circuit designs, high speed data collection, automation, and C/C++ programming. As a product design engineert at Intel Corp, I've focused on the quantification of physiological phenomena leading two fun projects: Precognition of Falls in the Elderly wearable and Global tracking of climate change through mangrove forest data collection access points in Costa Rica. In addition, I’ve split my time on Intel architecture CPU validation. During the pandemic, working as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania school of medicine, I've focused on "Big Data" analysis in a High Performance Computing (HPC) environment, developing algorithms for precision medicine through the digital quantification of diseased tissue in histopathology. More specifically, the use of image color normalization, statistical analysis, and machine learning techniques for the advancement of detailed Glioblastoma characterization, the most aggresive and deadly of brain cancers.

Today

Currently, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wilson Lab, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (UPenn). My research focus is on analyzing big data concerning genomic changes in aging populations, with a particular focus on the loss of the Y-Chromosome in aging males and the unused X-Chromosome in aging females. This work aims to better understand the potential for developing kidney disease in these demographics. On a lighter note, I had the pleasure of hiking El Camino Frances over the summer (2022), from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela Spain. Covering 500 miles in 35 days was truly an unforgettable experience! See pictures here