Experience

As part of my DoD SMART Scholarship, I have completed internships with the Army Corps of Engineers' (USACE) Engineering Research and Development (ERDC) Field Research Facility (FRF) for the past three summers and will soon transition to a full-time role on the team. In this position, I have primarily focused on system integration in our fleet of aquatic robots, with the motivation of refining our near-shore bathymetric survey capabilities. Working in the embedded systems space, I have used hands-on electronics skills to physically integrate sensors onto our robots, as well as writing Python software to communicate with and log data from these devices to onboard microcontrollers in real-time, and post-process these data after the mission. I have also applied CAD design to create sensor mounts and replacement parts for our robots, gained experience and familiarity with GNSS technology, and have designed and conducted experiments to evaluate the capabilities of our sensors to inform future design and purchasing decisions.

After multiple years of attempts, I was finally able to accommodate being the Teacher's Assistant to the Guest Experience in Theme Park Design course in my schedule my final semester at CMU. In this role, I worked with the course instructor and TPEG faculty advisor, Shirley Saldamarco, to assist in administrative tasks in administering the course, including taking attendance, communicating with students, forming groups for team projects by balancing skill sets and experience, and answering student questions during in-class work time. This role allowed me to share my enthusiasm for the Themed Entertainment Industry with my fellow students.

As part of my interest in the Themed Entertainment Industry, I volunteered with AIMS International to assist in operating its annual Safety Seminar in Orlando, FL. The AIMS International Safety Seminar is attended by hundreds of industry professionals annually, who attend courses and take exams to receive safety certifications. For the 2024 Seminar, I served on a team of 12 AIMS Ambassadors, where we assisted instructors with registering and submitting materials for the seminar in the months leading up to the event, set up and tore down the Seminar, checked attendees into each class section and exam, and served as the liaisons between event staff, attendees, and sponsors. 

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Following the 2024 Seminar, I was asked to return as Seminar Ambassador Coordinator for the 2025 Seminar, alongside my Co-Lead Eliza Throne. In this role, we were additionally responsible for conducting over 25 interviews to assemble the final Ambassador team, conducting monthly meetings to prepare the Ambassadors for the seminar, and leading the Ambassador team during the week of the Safety Seminar.

In the Summer of 2022, I joined Google in Mountain View, CA as a STEP Intern on the YouTube Data team. In this role, I was tasked with using C++ and Google's internal Flume library and Borg Cluster Manager to create a software pipeline to evaluate content deletion requests for potential non-compliance with the EU's GDPR policies. This role was my first exposure to large company culture and standards, and thus gave me experience with good coding practices such as unit tests and peer reviews.

In the Summer of 2021, following my freshman year, I joined the Field Research Facility in Duck, NC for what would be the first, but far from last, time. In this role, I assisted with the maintenance and operation of two aquatic robotics systems, utilized CAD to redesign a buoy used by a treaded UUV robot to maintain radio communications with the surface to be more hydrodynamic, wrote Python scripts to process bathymetric data collected by the robots, and contributed to two publications, the first of my career.

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Publications:

Evaluating autonomous system performance in the surfzone

Amphibious Uncrewed Ground Vehicle for Coastal Surfzone Survey