I entered the Ka Moamoa Lab shortly after starting my undergraduate research journey due to my interest in building low-power sensors that can harvest energy from their surroundings. As someone who was working on generating electricity through the use of soil microbial fuel cells (SMFC) in the Wells Lab at the same time, I was particularly interested in finding methods to harness the ~200 µW power that a SMFC could provide. I started by attempting to power a STM32WLE5JC transceiver board with the SMFC, which gave me hands-on experience with LoRa and the Helium network. I also performed energy calculations for the overall sensing and wireless communication system, which allowed me to make design decisions based on the power budget.

To further increase the runtime of SMFC-powered devices, I turned to utilizing analog backscatter as the method of choice for wireless communication. Under the guidance of Dr. Josiah Hester and Dr. Nivedita Arora, I collaborated with Ph.D. students from the Georgia Institute of Technology to create analog sensors that transmits environmental data via backscatter with <1 µW of power. I designed and assembled numerous iterations of the board using KiCAD , which gave me the opportunity to dive into analog and RF circuit design. In addition, I leveraged HackRFs and GNU Radio to build a custom transceiver system to record the data transmitted by these SMFC-powered sensors to study their long-term performance. My time at Ka Moamoa has been instrumental to my development as a person, researcher, and engineer. I led teams across multiple universities on various projects centered around soil-powered computing, and have been fortunate to receive excellent mentorship from both inside and outside of the lab. Moving forward, I hope to continue the lab's mission by taking on cutting edge, sustainable systems research in my own work.

I began my journey in the Wells Lab in June of 2020 to work on a remote bioinformatics project and process raw 16s rRNA data with QIIME 2 and produce community composition plots using Python to further the understanding of the ecology of microbial fuel cells. This sparked my interest in bio-electrochemical systems and led me to join the soil microbial fuel cell (SMFC) project undertaken by the Wells Lab, Ka Moamoa Lab, and collaborators from UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego. Our goal is to design resilient microbe-powered soil batteries to provide renewable energy supplies to distributed sensor networks for agricultural and green infrastructure monitoring, which will not only eliminate the need for toxic chemical batteries but also enable the creation of fully self-sustaining IoT systems.

As an undergraduate researcher, I took advantage of my knowledge of renewable energy to construct a solar charging system to power outdoor data loggers for off-grid cell performance monitoring. I also contribute by leveraging 3D printing and laser cutting to conduct rapid prototyping and explore unique geometries for the cells. I previously devised models and schematics for the manufacturing of 16 SMFC scaled-up prototypes with SOLIDWORKS, and I worked to design cells that can perform regardless of soil moisture levels, which we have found to be crucial to their power output.

While interning at CNH Industrial's NAFTA Regional Headquarter in Burr Ridge, IL, I led a project to design, prototype, and test a multi-depth soil moisture and temperature sensing module intended to be mounted on a moving tillage implement, which ultimately resulted in 3 new IP filings. This device has the potential to generate high-definition 3D maps of soil moisture and soil temperature levels throughout the field, enabling farmers to adjust their operations accordingly to maximize their yield. With the support of the Product Validation, Autonomous Operations, and New Holland Rapid Prototyping teams as well as my supervisors, I conceptualized and built the entirety of the sensing module from its electrical circuit and backend software to the ruggedized mechanical design of the sensor housing.

In the process of creating the electrical system of the sensing module, I dove deep into both analog and digital electronics and designed custom printed circuit boards to minaturize the final circuit layout. Through modifying and debugging the sensors, I gained hands-on experience designing sensors from fundamental physics, and improved my understanding of high frequency signals processing.

On the software side, I utilized C++ and Python to convert raw sensor values into CAN messages that the data logger in the tractor cabin can receive, which sharpened my skills in digital communication protocols (CAN, I2C), data acquisition/processing, and embedded programming with microcontrollers in general.

To design the housing of the module, I took into account the stress and torque the sensors experience as they cut through soil at high speed, and used Creo Parametric to create all the 3D models and dimensioned drawings necessary to manufacture the device. This integrated my knowledge of geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), and gave me first-hand experience with sheet metal design and creating heavy-duty waterproof enclosures. I operated a stereolithography (SLA) 3D printer as well as a variety of metal working tools to construct the housing out of steel and resin. After evaluating the initial prototype performance, I further improved the housing's rigidity by manufacturing it out of glass-infused nylon with a selective laser sintering (SLS) printer.

My time at CNH Industrial enabled me to integrate the entirety of my engineering skillset (software, electronics, mechanical) into innovating new solutions in the field of precision agriculture and automation. I gained exposure to corporate R&D, and created value for the company by taking a holistic approach for this complex problem. CNH inspired me to go beyond the obvious and onto the cutting edge, where I hope to remain to continue inventing new technologies that address the ever-increasing challenges associated with climate change.

Throughout the summer of 2021, I had the privilege of interning for General Motors at the Bedford GPS plant near Bloomington, IN where I gained first hand experience with environmental compliance in air, water, and hazardous waste and tackled large-scale sustainability projects such as GM’s Zero Waste and decarbonizing initiatives. My time working in the office, on the plant floor, and in the three wastewater treatment plants directly next to the plant taught me to appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of manufacturing and the importance of system thinking, and it also inspired me to innovate and look for solutions beyond the obvious.

By leveraging my software and workplace automation skills, I helped GM’s global Sustainable Workplaces department shortcut their annual chemical inventory workflow from an entire day of work to just seconds through building a custom Python data processing application with a complete GUI and creating the necessary training material for GM’s engineers to use the program.

By integrating my knowledge of environmental monitoring systems and microbial fuel cells, I increased the resilience of Bedford GPS and decreased the amount of labor required to ensure compliance through proposing and facilitating the acquisition of two novel bio-electrochemical sensors for real-time BOD measurements.

By taking a human-centered approach and a tinkerer’s mindset, I aided in the installation of exciting wastewater treatment technologies through constructing 12+ standardized procedures for the operation and maintenance of a new Dissolved Air Flotation mixed liquor suspended solid removal system and a self-cleaning turbidity sensor module.

General Motors pushed me to Be Bold, Innovate Now, and Win With Integrity, and instilled in me the importance of including sustainability upstream the design process, all of which have became significant cornerstones of my engineering philosophy.