Resume

Andrew Wilson PhD

Experience

  • Semiconductor Industry: Lithography tools and Inspection Tools
    • Mechanical design and analysis of high-bandwidth (kHz), high-resolution stages (nm), assembly fixtures, test fixtures, pressure gauges.
    • Modal, servo and thermal FEA analysis to verify design solutions.
    • Hardware testing to validate FEA analysis
    • Vacuum chamber design
    • Mag-lev stage design
    • Air-bearing feedthrough design
  • Biotechnology:
    • Next Generation Sequencing:
      • Mechanical design of 3-DOF mechanical system for next-generation sequencer
      • Conceptualized, developed system process and designed the NGS Content Enrichment system, a complete electromechanical/optical/micro-fluidic instrumentation system.
        • Worked with marketing and other functional teams to define product specifications and features.
        • Delivered 3 units successfully to early access customers in less than 8 months.
        • Designed and integrated high-precision fluid handling system consisting of 3-axis stages and 5 positive displacement pumps.
        • Designed and developed novel quick-connect fluid connector along with registration system to automatically connect to the micro-fluidic chip.
        • Designed and developed automated image processing to detect and pair genomic DNA with the primer library at 3kHz.
        • Designed optics and illumination for trans-illumination using Zemax.
      • Managed small engineering team and developed several automated systems and processes to generate customer selected primer library (consumable).
        • Library generation system, micro-fluidic handling device generating picoliter droplets at 3 kHz running continuously.
        • Designed and developed automated systems and processes to pool, mix and dispense customer selected library emulsions into consumables.
        • Designed optics and illumination for epi-illumination using Zemax using non-sequential ray-tracing analysis.
    • Gene Synthesis
      • Developed automated process for manufacturing synthetic genes.
        • Leverage off-the-shelf fluid handler automation to rapidly develop synthetic gene production operation.
        • Facilities coordinator, production layout, machinery installation, HVAC and electrical modifications and Type 1 water supply installation.
        • Process documentation.
      • Developed high-throughput next generation gene synthesis system.
        • Designed high-speed/high-resolution Gantry controlled by Delta Tau Brick controller: (3G acceleration, 1/2µm).
        • Designed and developed high-speed thermal cycler (up to 10⁰C/sec ramp rates).
    • In Vivo 3D Imaging
      • Design and prototype Fluorescence Molecular Tomography platform.
        • 3D CAD Modeling, 2D detail drawings of 4-axis diffuse optical tomography system
        • GUI controlling FMT system, including Princeton Instruments camera, filter wheel, illuminators, laser modules and Parker Hannafien 6k4 motion controller
        • Developed automated system calibration, reducing system positionin error from 300-μm to 25-μm.
        • Designed and implemented 3D rendering software using OpenGL to visualize and analyze reconstructed tomographics data.
    • BioFuel
      • Guided mechanical design of innovative microbial fuel cell technology
      • Developed remote data acquisition system to track and control microbial fuel cell energy generation
  • Telecommunications
    • Developed and implemented an automated fiber optic connector inspection machine to inspect backplane interconnects.
    • Designed, fabricated, integrated and fully tested inexpensive 4-axis machine with nanometer resolution, achieved via detailed system error budget, system dynamic modeling and verified using capacitance gauge sensors.
    • Motion control via ARM7TDMI microcontroller and RTLinux. Designed custom digital/analog circuits for DC motor drivers, quadrature encoders, and analog focus circuit.
    • Developed machine-vision algorithms for repeatable and accurate fiber-endface defect detection using Hough Transform, morphological operators, wavelet denoising, correlation filters, high-dynamic range radiance maps, image-fusion and deconvolution.
    • Designed, fabricated, integrated and fully tested a custom long working distance microscope objective with micron resolution using OSLO software and custom scripts to reduce manufacturing tolerances while maintaining diffraction limited system performance.
    • Developed production system interface with MySQL database using C/C++ and python for rapid and robust implementation.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology,                                                                        Cambridge, MA

Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, January 2006

Design of a Fiber Optic Ferrule Inspection Machine for In Situ Backplane Inspection

Samir Nayfeh

 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology,                                                                        Cambridge, MA

S.M., Mechanical Engineering, June 2001

Design of an Automated On-Car Brake Lathe

Samir Nayfeh

 

Santa Clara University,                                                                                                    Santa Clara, CA

B.S.M.E., Mechanical Engineering, June 1999

 

Patents