About Me
PERSONAL DETAILS
Here's some more info about me.
Before joining Amazon in January 2021, I dedicated two decades of my career to the aerospace industry, with a specific focus on autonomy, AI, and guidance navigation and controls (GNC). Throughout this journey, I actively contributed to a wide spectrum of programs, engaging in every aspect of the product lifecycle. My involvement ranged from technology planning, concept development, mathematical modelling, analysis, design, implementation & test, mission execution and anomaly resolution, culminating in customer delivery and comprehensive support.
One of the hallmarks of my professional identity is my unwavering commitment to innovation, being resourceful and, most importantly, delivering results. In 2017, my efforts were recognized with the prestigious distinction of Technical Fellow, a title awarded to the top 0.2% of Boeing's technical community. This accolade was a testament to demonstration of technical knowledge, impact, visionary leadership, and teaching and mentoring.
My mission is to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation, fostering the next generation of tech leaders, and driving transformative solutions that make a lasting, positive impact on our world. I believe that it is critical that we innovate to achieve safe autonomy solutions that work for all.
MY EXPERIENCE
Sr. Principal Technologist (Executive Engineer) Amazon Robotics AI January 2021 - present
Amazon: Robotics Senior Principal Technologist, January 2021 – present
PI for a research project developing ways to architect a critical autonomous system that leverages intelligent optimization algorithms and is verifiable.
Autonomy Working Group Lead for senior technical leaders working on autonomous products at Amazon to identify areas of synergy and accelerate progress through knowledge sharing.
Provided critical Autonomy and Guidance, Navigation and Controls subject matter expert (SME) review on both a Red and a Gold Team review aligned with Project Kuiper. Continues to provide SME support to Kuiper on a regular basis.
Learn & Be Curious by spending ~1 day/month working in an operations building to learn the different jobs that people do and understand how robotics helps / impacts people. Jobs done to date include pick, stow, AFE (Induct, Rebin & Pack), Smart Pac, Amnesty (AR Floor drive unit fault recovery) and Reliability Maintenance Engineering (RME).
Owned the 2021 Item Manipulation Operational Plan 1 strategy document for Robotics AI.
Flash Autonomous Mobile Robot Chief Engineer, September 2021 – July 2022
Technical leader for science and engineering teams in ensuring that the technical integrity of a proof of concept AMR. Outcomes include but are not limited to leading the team through the definition and creation of safety analyses and development required to architect and verify the system as safe. The prototype completed the first milestone for safety certification through 3rd party assessor TUV (completion of Preliminary Construction Review).
Flash Autonomous Mobile Robot Safety Lead, September 2021 – July 2022
Defined required analysis and engineering work and lead the science, engineering and safety teams through Safety Case definition and Safety Case Acceptance by the external Assessor in Preliminary Construction Review.
Wrote Safety 101 paper to help the team and others understand functional safety work across the product life cycle.
Launched and lead the Safety Tiger Team to teach engineers without expertise in safety how to complete fundamental safety work to fill a resource gap.
Aerospace Engineer / Technical Fellow Boeing
September 2000 – November 2002 & November 2004 – January 2021
Led Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Domian Leading technology strategy and research portfolio for the company 2019 – 2020
Research developing a Vehicle Health Management System leveraging ML to isolate failures.
Defined a standard approach to doing the necessary analysis to enable autonomous systems across products based in the role a person plays in interacting with the system.
Boeing Defense Systems Spacecraft Autonomy Chief Engineer Highlights 2010 – 2018
Successfully delivered 14 satellites to customers by providing launch and early orbit support on console from the El Segundo Mission Control Center. Roles varied from Spacecraft Engineer to Attitude Control Systems (ACS) Specialist to ACS Management Assistance Team (2010 – 2018).
Quickly returned multiple vehicles to service for customers after anomalies occurred on-orbit. Identified immediate required action in a high stress environment at different hours of day and night. Identified the likely root cause then developed and implemented a long-term corrective action. Minimized out of service time and prevented vehicle damage (2010 – 2018).
Developed an intelligent optimization algorithm to solve a challenging Gain Suppression and Adaptive Nulling problem. Became the Critical Design Review Lead in Gain Suppression and Adaptive Nulling, areas unfamiliar before this task (2017).
Led Spacecraft Autonomy Roadmap development. Drove investment decisions that enabled the insertion of innovation. Saved $ on recurring production (2010 – 2018).
Reduced recurring cost and time for completing fault analysis by leading the Spacecraft Autonomy function to start using a model based tool. This made it easier to use modern techniques such as Bayesian Belief Network Analysis (2013 – 2018).
Educated hundreds of Engineers by teaching Spacecraft Autonomy 101 and 201 for the Satellite 101 and 201 series (2010 – 2018).
Technical Leadership Highlights 2004 - 2020
Led Technology Strategy for Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence & Data Science, representing thousands of engineers (2019 – 2020)
Directed the annual technology planning process, synthesizing input from hundreds of technical experts into actionable business insight for the CTO to use to drive the Long Range Business Plan (LRBP) (2019 – 2020)
Enabled AI education for all by defining and organizing content aligned with different personas to support the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) Program office while leading the AI/ML Education and Training Committee (2019 – 2020)
Developed data driven recommendations to increase inclusion in the Technical Fellowship as the Inclusion Subcommittee Lead for the Technical Fellowship Advisory Committee. Incorporated input from diverse representatives across generations to ensure that a variety of ideas are heard and included (2019 – 2020)
Led an analysis effort for a $B constellation when the measured mass properties for the first vehicle were higher than predicted. Performed Root Cause Corrective Action (RCCA) and led an effort to develop a mass properties envelope for future in family satellites – won employee of the month for this work (2009 – 2010)
Led the Autonomy Tiger Team to assess and resolve issues impacting Spacecraft Autonomy including: Identifying the impact of issues, coming up with mitigation plans, training and tasking engineers new to Autonomy and planning, scheduling and providing support to ensure programs were executed successfully (2004 – 2008)
Aerospace engineer, Raytheon Corporation
November 2002 – October 2004
Used a novel approach to mathematically model a system that had yet to be modeled enabling the development of the controller and gain selection.
Saved award fee by creating a first time developed autonomous fault management algorithm that was on critical path to meet a significant customer milestone for a classified program
Aerospace Engineer Hughes Space & Communicatios / Boeing Satellite Systes
September 2000 – November 2002
