Systems thinking,
from the silicon to the org chart.
I lead engineering teams that take hard R&D problems and turn them into products that actually ship. I also run the business side of my group: the utilization, the margins, the delivery across functions, and the day-to-day processes teams depend on.
I sit between the deep technical work and getting things shipped.
I started on Mars-rover electronics, spent years on biomedical microsystems, moved into commercial robotics, and now run a multidisciplinary engineering group. The work keeps changing. The hard part doesn't: getting people, architecture, evidence, and decisions lined up well enough that a difficult system actually gets built.
I'm at my best when the requirements are half-formed, the disciplines are tangled together, and a missed integration problem gets expensive fast. Alongside the engineering, I handle the business side of my group: utilization, margins, delivery across functions, the processes teams run on, and coaching engineers and PMs to get better at how they work. When the tools to manage the group don't exist yet, I build them.
The same job, at different scales.
Each of these was some version of the same thing: take an idea from research to a real product, and build the team that can keep doing it.
Multidisciplinary product development · Motivo Engineering
Lead a 15-engineer electrical & software organization within a vertically integrated product-development company. Beyond technical direction, I run the business side of the group: tracking utilization and margin across programs, holding cross-functional delivery accountability, building the processes and infrastructure my disciplines rely on, and coaching engineers and PMs to work more effectively.
BizOps tooling & engineering infrastructure · Motivo Engineering
I build the internal systems that keep the group running: tools for resourcing and capacity, dashboards for tracking how work is actually going, CI/CD pipelines and deployment setup for the engineers, and small internal tools that take manual work off people's plates. Most engineering managers use these systems. I write them.
Systems engineering · Miso Robotics
Built the systems engineering function from zero to an 8-person team, supporting the commercialization of AI-driven robotic systems for commercial kitchens.
NSF SBIR leadership · SmartGait
Served as Principal Investigator for an NSF SBIR Phase I program, managing both R&D and business development for an electronic healthcare device.
Low-cost platforms for wound therapy · Purdue
Developed scalable microsystems for transdermal therapeutics and chronic wound treatment. The work was licensed by Mednoxa, Inc. to develop advanced wound dressings, and informed subsequent flexible-hybrid-electronics research.
Electronics & visual odometry · NASA JPL
Designed digital electronics hardware and implemented visual-odometry algorithms for Mars-rover applications while studying electrical engineering at Caltech.
How I run a team.
Engineering teams rarely fail because people aren't working hard enough. They fail because the interfaces are unclear, decisions drift, nobody owns the risk, and the feedback loops are too slow. A few things I hold to:
Architecture before activity
Get the boundaries, interfaces, and decision criteria clear before anyone optimizes their own corner of the work.
Evidence over confidence
Turn assumptions into tests and opinions into decisions you can point to a reason for. Assign each risk to a person, not a doc.
Integrate early
Bring the disciplines together while changing things is still cheap. Late integration is just architecture work you deferred, with interest.
Run the business, not just the build
Watch utilization, margin, and delivery as closely as the technical design, and keep building the judgment and ownership of the people around you while the work ships.
The technical foundation.
Before management, I spent a decade deep in the technical work: electrical engineering, MEMS, biomedical devices, flexible electronics, sensing, robotics. I've co-authored more than 70 papers, worked on research programs spanning several institutions, taught at the university level, and mentored a lot of students along the way. It's the depth I still lean on when the hard technical calls land on my desk.
publications
citations
patents
at university
Outside the day job.
Leading well isn't only about the work in front of you. Some of what I care about happens in the community, on boards, and with the people I mentor.
Treasurer & Director of Fundraising
Board member strengthening financial systems, supporting sustainable growth, and applying structured execution to community programs. Chaired Operation Gobbler 2025, which put full Thanksgiving meals on the table for 400+ families after the Eaton Fire.
Board member & Secretary
Supporting the regional systems-engineering community through governance, program development, and stronger operating mechanisms.
Developing technical judgment
Mentoring engineers and researchers across academic, startup, and product-development environments, with an emphasis on systems thinking and practical ownership.
Get in touch.
Happy to talk about robotics, hard product problems, systems engineering, running engineering teams, or getting research out of the lab and into something real.