This is my work and education history.
Bonitron (Fall 2007-Present)In August 2007 I came to work for
Bonitron,
a small electrical engineering company in Nashville focusing on industrial power quality equipment.
There I work primarily on embedded computer systems, and am continually learning more
about switching power supplies and magnetics.
Vanderbilt (2006-2008)In August 2006 I began graduate studies at
Vanderbilt University.
Building on my undergraduate education, I majored in Electrical Engineering and minored in Computer Science.
I was part of the
ISIS research group,
focusing on wireless sensor networks. For my thesis I implemented an acoustic beamformer for low-power
wireless sensor nodes.
This small battery-powered device could identify the direction a sound was coming from,
filter the results by the frequency of the incoming sound, and transmit those results to a computer
which would then merge the results from multiple sensor nodes to give a better idea of where
sounds were coming from.
My beamformer could last for many hours on a pair of AA batteries.
I graduated with my masters' degree in May 2008.
Polley Lab (Summer 2006)Summer 2006 I worked for
Dr. Dan Polley,
a researcher at the
Kennedy Center,
Vanderbilt University.
My exact duties at Polley Lab fluctuated, and included shopping for and purchasing hard to locate items,
overall experiment design, general Matlab programming, and learning to make espresso.
My biggest task, however, was the creation of a rat-sized walkman.
Dr. Polley wanted to perform experiments that required a rat to be able to move freely
as sounds were played to it and data from its brain was recorded.
(I suppose freedom of movement is a relative term when you're a rat in a cage with electrodes implanted in your brain.)
There were two catches: the sounds needed to be played in each ear independently of the other ear,
requiring rat headphones instead of a single omnidirectional speaker;
and the signals coming out of the rat's brain were so small that any audio signal running alongside them
through the
commutator would almost certainly
cause destructive interference.
We needed to have a wireless audio solution for the rat.
While the idea of creating the world's first bluetooth-enabled rat was appealing,
the test results were not encouraging, and we eventually decided to go for a custom solution.
In retrospect a digital transceiver assembly might have been a better option, but due to my lack of experience at the time
we went with an analog transceiver set. After several iterations of PCB design,
we eventually ended up with 100g dual mono RF receiver capable of handling signals up to about 24 kHz with appropriate speakers.
The system was far from perfect, and could probably stand to be improved considerably.
Still, given my inexperience with the technologies involved, I was rather proud to have developed a system that worked.
NTA (Summer 2005)In the summer of 2005 I worked as an intern for
NTA.
NTA is a small US Army contractor, operating out of the Arsenal in Huntsville, AL.
I was required to obtain a secret-level security clearance for the position,
though I never encountered any information marked as classified during my stay.
I worked in an area related to
GMLRS guidance system testing, and
spent some time performing
HWIL simulations.
Early in my time at NTA I wrote a program using the wxPython library which plotted the locations of GPS satellites
in the sky given a time and location. The program also allowed for continuous updating of the satellites locations in real time,
and for dynamic rotation of the display to match a given heading.
During some downtime, I constructed a relational database to store all NTA's rocket test data in a single location.
This was made especially challenging by NTA's almost exclusive use of Linux, which I was at the time unfamiliar with.
Eventually I used MySQL for the final database, with a beta of OpenOffice.org Base as the frontend, and a number
of Python scripts to populate the database.
Towards the end of my stay, I helped write a program that decoded data streams from certain rocket tests.
This required using the C union and struct operators in ways I had not before considered,
greatly enhancing my understanding of the utility of the language.
Lipscomb (2002-2006)In August 2002 I began undergraduate studies at
Lipscomb University.
At the time, I was unsure of what major I wished to pursue.
Having always been interested in computers, computer science was an obvious choice.
Still, I considered many others prior to starting school,
to ensure I wasn't missing out on something I might like better.
Pre-med, pre-law, political science, piano performace,
math and philosophy were all appealing to some degree or another.
But when I walked into a CS meeting by accident, I quickly realized that I was in the right place.
I was unaware that Lipscomb had an engineering program until a few weeks into my first semester.
Once I was made aware of the program, I decided that I liked both computer science and computer engineering.
I was told that completing both programs in four years wasn't likely,
but with some hard work I managed to graduate on time with both majors.
The education I received at Lipscomb was excellent in almost every respect,
and I believe that the professors there did a good job of preparing me for my career.
Public Library (2001-2002)From October 2001 to August 2002 I was employed part time as a page at the
Edmondson Pike branch of the
Davidson County public library.
As a page my main task was to shelve books.
I also spent time shelfreading (ensuring that books were shelved in the correct locations),
sorting books going to other branches, and reactivating book security tags.
I left in order to begin school at
Lipscomb University.
Homeschooling (1996-2002)I began homeschooling in seventh grade, and continued until graduation.
I edited a local homeschool newsletter for some time,
and participated in an area homeschool concert band for three years where I played the clarinet and bass clarinet.
While I recognize that homeschooling is not a universal solution,
when done well it can be an excellent opportunity for a child.
I fully believe it was the best solution for me,
and I'm more than satisfied with the education I obtained in those six years.
I support homeschooling rights, so long as certain educational standards are met.