Rud Lucien

Principal R&D Instrumentation Engineer

Lynn, Massachusetts, United States

About

I'm an accomplished data-driven Principal Engineer and Lead Process Development Engineer with over 10 years of experience leading new product development lifecycles in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. I have extensive experience in all aspects of research, testing, and development including drug and device combination products, prototyping, system modeling, clinical trials, design control, and team leadership. I enjoy building valuable relationships and work well with people at all levels of an organization including stakeholders, executive management, team members, and clients. ✉ [email protected]

Experience

  • Principal Device Engineer at Moderna
    May 2022 - Jul 2025 · 3 yrs 3 mos

    At Moderna I was part of a large multidisciplinary team building an automated drug discovery platform for high-throughput LNP formulation. I designed and built two automation subsystems — including hardware, firmware, and command APIs that integrated with liquid handlers, an industrial robot arm, and platform orchestration software. The platform scaled 100x in throughput, compressing research cycles from weeks to days.

  • Principal Engineer → Sr. Manager at Portal Instruments
    May 2017 - May 2022 · 5 yrs 1 mo

    At Portal I built and led a pre-clinical research team, serving as the subject matter expert on jet injection process characterization for a software-controlled Class IIa needle-free injection device. Through systematic characterization across tens of thousands of injections, I narrowed the critical performance variables from 10+ down to 4 and generated the specifications that drove system design. I also contributed to two published human clinical studies and supported in-vivo animal PK studies in swine and non-human primates.

  • Lead Process Development Engineer at Velico Medical Inc
    Mar 2013 - May 2017 · 4 yrs 3 mos

    At Velico I contributed to the design and development of custom spray drying instruments and characterized the spray dried plasma process from early concept through IDE/IND submission. Work included establishing process parameters for protein function, collection yield, and residual moisture. I also helped develop the single-use plastic disposable and installed instruments at a regional blood center to manufacture spray dried plasma for regulatory submission.

  • Research and Development Engineer at SpringLeaf Therapeutics
    May 2010 - Jan 2013 · 2 yrs 9 mos

    Early-career R&D role supporting pre-clinical device characterization, test method development, and design verification for a novel drug administration system.

  • Junior Engineer, Diabetes Care, R&D (Contract) at BD
    Aug 2008 - May 2010 · 1 yr 10 mos