NEWS: I have started a new position as Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago and the Discovery Partners Institute. This website will soon be transitioned to UIC.
I was a postdoctoral fellow in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and at the Discovery Partners Institute, a Chicago-based innovation hub dedicated to expanding technology education and entrepreneurship in Illinois. I was born and raised in the Chicago area and have lived in Illinois most of my life.
I have worn hearing aids since I was a teenager and my research is dedicated to improving hearing technology. Since 2017, I have supervised a team of students in the Illinois Augmented Listening Laboratory, an interdisciplinary research group developing new technologies to improve human listening abilities. My PhD research focused on microphone array signal processing for human listening applications. My current research focuses on distributed acoustic sensor networks, which aggregate signals from many devices in a room to improve listening performance.
Education
| 2019 | Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| 2014 | M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| 2012 | B.S. in Engineering in Electrical Engineering Princeton University |
Fellowships
| 2019–2022 | Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship |
| 2014–2019 | National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship |
Awards
| 2021 | Future of Science Award, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (Awarded to one postdoctoral fellow nationwide each year) |
| 2020 | Best Presentation, NSF I-Corps Los Angeles Cohort “HearNets: Cooperative Acoustic Intelligence” |
| 2020 | Best Student Paper Award, 179th ASA Meeting “Dynamic Range Compression of Sound Mixtures” |
| 2019 | Best Student Paper Award, WASPAA 2019 “Motion-Tolerant Beamforming with Deformable Microphone Arrays” |
| 2018 | Best New Exhibit, Engineering Open House “Listen Up (or Down): The Technology of Directional Listening” |
| ’12, ’13’, ’17, ’19 | List of Teachers Rated Excellent by Students |
| 2015 | Claude Shannon Student Research Award, SONIC Center |
Grants
| 2021–2022 | $125,000 | DPI Science Team Award |
| 2019–2021 | $250,000 | NSF IIP Partnership for Innovation grant |
| 2020 | $10,000 | Microsoft AI for Accessibility Grant |
| 2018 | $25,000 | Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant |
Professional Experience
| 2021– | Postdoctoral Researcher in Residence Discovery Partners Institute, Chicago, IL |
| 2019–2022 | Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellow University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| 2020 | Entrepreneurial Lead NSF Innovation Corps, Los Angeles cohort |
| 2013–2019 | Research Assistant/Predoctoral Fellow University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign |
| 2016 | Research Intern Arm Research, Austin, TX |
| 2011 | Engineering Intern Motorola Solutions, Schamburg, IL |
Teaching Experience
| 2017–2022 | Project Mentor TE 401-F: Innovation in Augmented Listening Technology |
| 2019 | Instructor of Record ECE 310: Digital Signal Processing |
| 2017 | Teaching Assistant (Primary instructor) ECE 310: Digital Signal Processing |
| 2014 | Teaching Assistant ECE 310: Digital Signal Processing |
| 2013 | Teaching Assistant ECE 445: Senior Design |
| 2012 | Teaching Assistant ECE 110: Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering |