Professional Experience
Caterpillar
Design Engineering Intern
May 2025 - August 2025
During the summer of 2025, I was a Design Engineering Intern at Caterpillar Inc. working on developing a new line of injectors. My summer project was to design, build, test, and implement a new system to measure the temperature of their solenoid valves during engine operation. This came with many difficult engineering challenges like embedded systems programming, timing control, real-time computation, high-voltage power system sensing, digital circuits and logic, implementing failsafes, and complex control algorithms. Additionally, the interdisciplinary nature of my group meant I worked closely with engineers in mechatronics, performance, and simulations at different points throughout the summer.
In addition to my main project, I was assigned a second, smaller project, which was to design and manufacture a fixture to allow for disassembly of a new injector geometry without having to de-torque the main body. This project introduced me to lots of fundamental design skills including bolt calculations, geometric dimensioning & tolerancing, and designing for machining and 3D printing. Using CREO for CAD and drawings, I worked with the machinists to create the parts out of bar stock and use them to modify an existing disassembly fixture to accomodate the new injector geometry.
I also worked with many of the design engineers on a day-to-day basis solving problems related to new technology introduction, including issues with manufacturing processes (like electrical discharge machining), sealing, material failure analysis, and more issues that come up during testing. Because the issues that come up are so different and so frequent, it's definitely helped me grow to be more flexible and developed my problem-solving abilities.
Skills:
Microcontrollers
Electrical Circuits
Solid Mechanics
DFM
GD&T
PTC CREO
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Course Grader
August 2024 - December 2024
I spent a semester as a course grader for UIUC's Introductory Fluid Mechanics (TAM 335) course. I spent about 4 hours a week grading homeworks in various topics of fluid dynamics.
Skills:
Fluid Dynamics
Argonne National Laboratory
Science Undergraduate Laboratory Intern
May 2024 - August 2024
I spent summer at Argonne in the Transportation and Power Systems Division working on post-processing algorithms in python for sustainable fuel combustion experiments.
One algorithm was designed to detect asynchronous behavior in Dual-Piston Rapid Compression Machines (dpRCM) from pressure data from inside the combustion chamber by identifying a spike in noise. By replacing the old algorithm I was able to improve the accuracy and precision by 82% while decreasing run time by 60%.
The second algorithm was able to identify the true start of compression in dpRCM experiments by fitting experimental curves to idealized isentropic cases, which was accurate to within 0.1ms.
The results of the algorithms were tested by comparing them in Excel to 80 experiments with Linear Variable Differential Transformer (LVDT) position data. The full research poster is linked here.
Skills:
Python
Microsoft Excel
Thermodynamics
Glen Crest Middle School
Robotics Team Mentor
October 2022 - May 2023
During my senior year of high school, I reached out to my former middle school to start a robotics team to lay the groundwork for a future high school team. Working with four other mentors, I created basic lesson plans and ran practices to compete in the regional FIRST Lego League competition with our team of 12 middle-schoolers.
I also managed finances, organized fundraising, and ensured that all competition materials were purchased in a timely manner. This was an amazing way for me to give back to the community that raised me, and this team will always have a special place in my heart!
