The Startup Life, my journey from: seismic waves, to nanoparticles, and now deep learning.

Boulder Imaging Inc

Boulder Imaging is an industry leader in Machine Vision Technology. As a company, we tackle the most challenging problems. Our newest product IdentiFlight Aerial Detection System uses A.I. to save endangered birds at wind farms, a key factor in the sustainability of renewable energy. The system scans the entire sky and identifies all endangered birds in the proximity of wind turbines and shuts down turbines according to bird flight paths.

I am the lead machine learning developer for the Identiflight systems. This involves the entire machine learning pipeline from data validation, preprocessing, model training, validation to the final model deployment and future architecture R&D.

Here is a NOVA clip of the system in action!

Zepto Life Technologies

Previously, I worked as a Software Developer for Zepto Life Technologies (Zepto) a small biotech startup. We developed handheld devices capable of early cancer, PCR and heart attack detection. Our system used a Nobel Prize-winning physical phenomenon called “giant magnetoresistance” (GMR). The GMR sensor detects nanoparticles attached to different antibodies/DNA. This allowed us to miniaturize assay technology into a handheld device, which was previously not possible.

I was part of a team of 3-4 Software Developers that worked alongside a crew of scientists designing and developing the system from scratch. That entailed the firmware for a microcontroller that powers the GMR sensor and pneumatics for the assay. Then we built on top of that with a communication layer onto a SOC (single board computer) powered by Yocto Linux. Finally, we built a Qt C++ Gui for the user interface and database for electronic medical records.

Early cancer detection is an issue I care about very deeply. I moved back to Minnesota after my Dad was diagnosed with cancer. I personally know the pain and heartache it causes families. For that reason, I am very proud of my time at Zepto!

Geophysical Exploration

Previously I was a Geophysicist. I received my Masters in it from the University of Wyoming under my advisor Steve Holbrook. During my time there I was part of a large $22.5 million NSF grant using exploration geophysics to find water resources and determine their stability in the Western United States.

My Master’s research was published in the Geophysical Research Letter. I developed my own geophysical method for determining the directions of fractures in the near-surface using seismic anisotropy. I also did extensive research on cross-well seismic tomography and seismic attenuation. I extensively used python and Matlab to model my data.

Few people realize geophysics is all about inverse theory. We take messy observational data and make models out of it. It’s no different than machine learning and any other regression of data. The only difference being we use physics to model the earth as our data.