Welcome!
The purpose of this site is for me to have a place to show the world what I'm up to. Hopefully someone may find something here useful to them at some point.
Background:
Making things better and in general building things is what motivated me to become an engineer. I wanted to learn the science behind creating new things and ensuring that they would work right the first time. I went to Las Positas Community College and transferred and graduated from UC Davis with my BS in Mechanical Engineering. I then completed my PhD studying thermal impacts on Li-ion battery performance in 2017, also at UC Davis working for Professor Jae Wan Park.
As the president of UC Davis' first two Formula Hybrid entries in 2010 and 2011 I led our great team to 3rd and 4th place finishes, respectively, out of about 30 universities from around the world. Additionally, we finished 2nd at UC Irvine's first Alternative Energy Competition in 2010 and 1st place at the Green Tech Innovation Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2011. The Formula SAE collegiate design competitions are a phenomenal opportunity for students to gain the critical hands-on engineering experience that companies need. Practice makes perfect!
Following my FH experience I worked at Kleenspeed Technologies, Inc. and designed and built a 150 mile range electric vehicle as part of a 5-man engineering team during 2012. I performed the mechanical development of the 40 kWh battery pack that was designed from the cell up. This encompassed the module development, electronics packaging, enclosure design, and thermal management design. Overall, the technology developed for this vehicle resulted in the submission of 5 provisional patent applications. This was an invaluable experience for me.
For my PhD I studied the influence that non-uniform temperature distributions have on the electrochemical performance in Li-ion cells. I conducted two key experimental projects: 1) studying the bulk cell performance impacts on pouch cells with non-uniform temperatures, and 2) studying the current distribution evolution among parallel-connected cell operating under non-uniform temperatures. Finally, I developed and validated a parallel-connected set of P2D (Newman-style) echem models to predict the current, SOC, and anode/cathode potential distributions in cells operating under non-uniform temperatures. This type of model would be useful in optimizing a battery pack thermal management system, or perhaps to also develop model-based firmware limits to protect the cells.
After graduation, I spent four years at Farasis Energy, which gave me the wonderful career opportunity to build and lead a world-class battery simulation team. At Farasis, myself and my team played a key role in the development of two successfully awarded programs with Daimler; a cell+module for EQS/EQE and a cell+module+pack for EQA/EQB. Both of these products are now in mass production since 2021.
I have spent the last two years refining my technical skills as an individual contributor working on thermal-electrochemical simulation on six new cell programs at Tesla.
Looking ahead I am focusing on opportunities where I can play a key role in the development of exciting new EV products at the Giga (and beyond) scale.
Background:
Making things better and in general building things is what motivated me to become an engineer. I wanted to learn the science behind creating new things and ensuring that they would work right the first time. I went to Las Positas Community College and transferred and graduated from UC Davis with my BS in Mechanical Engineering. I then completed my PhD studying thermal impacts on Li-ion battery performance in 2017, also at UC Davis working for Professor Jae Wan Park.
As the president of UC Davis' first two Formula Hybrid entries in 2010 and 2011 I led our great team to 3rd and 4th place finishes, respectively, out of about 30 universities from around the world. Additionally, we finished 2nd at UC Irvine's first Alternative Energy Competition in 2010 and 1st place at the Green Tech Innovation Day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2011. The Formula SAE collegiate design competitions are a phenomenal opportunity for students to gain the critical hands-on engineering experience that companies need. Practice makes perfect!
Following my FH experience I worked at Kleenspeed Technologies, Inc. and designed and built a 150 mile range electric vehicle as part of a 5-man engineering team during 2012. I performed the mechanical development of the 40 kWh battery pack that was designed from the cell up. This encompassed the module development, electronics packaging, enclosure design, and thermal management design. Overall, the technology developed for this vehicle resulted in the submission of 5 provisional patent applications. This was an invaluable experience for me.
For my PhD I studied the influence that non-uniform temperature distributions have on the electrochemical performance in Li-ion cells. I conducted two key experimental projects: 1) studying the bulk cell performance impacts on pouch cells with non-uniform temperatures, and 2) studying the current distribution evolution among parallel-connected cell operating under non-uniform temperatures. Finally, I developed and validated a parallel-connected set of P2D (Newman-style) echem models to predict the current, SOC, and anode/cathode potential distributions in cells operating under non-uniform temperatures. This type of model would be useful in optimizing a battery pack thermal management system, or perhaps to also develop model-based firmware limits to protect the cells.
After graduation, I spent four years at Farasis Energy, which gave me the wonderful career opportunity to build and lead a world-class battery simulation team. At Farasis, myself and my team played a key role in the development of two successfully awarded programs with Daimler; a cell+module for EQS/EQE and a cell+module+pack for EQA/EQB. Both of these products are now in mass production since 2021.
I have spent the last two years refining my technical skills as an individual contributor working on thermal-electrochemical simulation on six new cell programs at Tesla.
Looking ahead I am focusing on opportunities where I can play a key role in the development of exciting new EV products at the Giga (and beyond) scale.