Somerville, Massachusetts, United States
Fifteen years of industry experience finding practical solutions to technical problems in fields ranging from instrumentation for nuclear physics research and cancer therapy to radiographic imaging technologies for law enforcement, the military, and national security. NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT • Work with sales, marketing, and product management staff, and with customers, to understand market needs. Translate customer wishes into engineering requirements. • Involved in full development cycle from brainstorming concepts, through proposal to management or external funding agencies; feasibility studies; engineering design and optimization; prototyping; verification & validation testing; training manufacturing personnel; and documentation of intellectual property. • Author or coauthor of three issued US Patents and five published patent applications. PERFORMANCE TESTING & CHARACTERIZATION • Design, build, and supervise experiments; invent new metrics as needed to quantify performance. • Evaluate products in laboratory setting, in simulated field conditions, and in actual field trials. • Represent company on standards committees; coauthor of two published ANSI standards. ENGINEERING & MANUFACTURING SUPPORT • Propose design changes to reduce cost or weight or improve performance; analyze and test impact or benefit of design changes proposed by myself or by engineering, manufacturing, or management. • Educate engineers about scientific principles of product technology; collaborate on lean design efforts. • Assist manufacturing technicians with troubleshooting. SALES, MARKETING & PRODUCT MANAGEMENT SUPPORT • Inform marketing & sales staff about new technology and performance of new products. • Assist with marketing strategy. • Demonstrate capabilities of equipment to non-technically educated customers. • Support customer run evaluation tests of equipment; work in teams with customer personnel and personnel from subcontractors and corporate partners.
Design and upgrade of X-ray imaging systems to detect weapons and contraband in vehicles, in baggage, or on personnel. Initiate and perform scientific studies to better understand the behavior of backscatter X-ray imaging technology. Fashion simulated threats and obscurants to test equipment in scenarios ranging from drugs hidden in cargo to camouflaged improvised explosive devices. Project scopes range from standard product line offerings to one-off customer deliverables and laboratory prototypes. • As science lead for redesign of flagship product, raised image quality despite a 40% reduction in X-ray power and reduced space for X-ray detector array. • Developed the AS&E “Forwardscatter” option for the Z-Backscatter Van, an innovative user friendly alternative to conventional transmission X-ray technology, to enable the detection of metallic threats such as artillery shells hidden in vehicles. The new option produced $5 million in profits over five years and facilitated additional sales of the base product. • Implemented a novel quantitative image quality diagnostic tool to detect manufacturing defects; evaluate performance upgrades; and qualify cost saving design changes. First week of use detected two different defects in two units of a $700,000 product, and exposed a flawed manufacturing procedure. • Miniaturized X-ray systems to support highly mobile missions such as military Explosive Ordinance Detection and Disposal; adapted a miniature system, originally designed for police bomb-squads, to create a highly maneuverable system for the inspection of small aircraft for drugs, firearms, cash, and explosives.
Installation of a prototype $46M proton beam radiation cancer therapy system, presently operating at the Massachusetts General Hospital Burr Proton Therapy Center. • Conducted tests to commission accelerator hardware, control software, and safety systems. Operated and performed troubleshooting of 230 MeV cyclotron and beam line. Trained operators. Conducted mechanical alignment of multi-ton beam line electromagnets to sub-millimeter accuracy. • Organized operator schedules and allocated system time for various testing programs of both the vendor and client organizations; facilitated communications between Belgium-based supervisors and local client staff.
Investigations of the physics and design of cyclotrons and superconducting magnets. • Performed simulations of particle beam optics of Ion Beam Applications cancer therapy cyclotron to compare machine as-built to intended design. Thesis is used as a reference by operators of the cyclotron. • Devised novel method for numerical modeling of the plasma boundary of an internal cyclotron ion source for particle orbit tracking simulations.