Alumni Updates

Yuanzhe Zhang (MElEngr'14, PhD'15) recently joined Efficient Power Conversion Corp. as director of applications engineering. His focus will be designing state-of-the-art envelope tracking systems for 4G, LTE and 5G wireless infrastructure that demonstrate the benefits of using gallium nitride transistors.

James Eric Lupo (ElCompEngr'97; MD'08) moved back to Colorado from Los Angeles after completing his final two years of surgical training in otology, neurotology and lateral skull base surgery. He joined the practice at the Rocky Mountain Ear Center in Englewood, Colo.

Justan Steichen (ElEngr’00) has been promoted to director of engineering for Jewell Instruments. Steichen has been with the New Hampshire-based company since 2014. 

Nathan Seidle (ElEngr’04) received the Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Graduate Award at the CU Boulder Alumni Association’s 87th Annual Awards Ceremony. In 2003, Nathan opened a one-man business reselling circuit boards from Europe. His Boulder-based firm SparkFun now employs more than 100 people. He lives in Boulder.

From his college apartment, Nathan Seidle (ElEngr'04) built and sold his first circuit boards. Twelve years later his company, SparkFun, sells 100,000 circuit boards a month, offers 2,000 different products and has annual revenues of nearly $33 million. This summer SparkFun opened its first offline store in Niwot, Colo., catering to small-scale buyers interested in kits and parts.

The first microbrewery in Jordan, Carakale, was created by Yazan Karadsheh (ElEngr'06). Yazan produces 40,000 bottles per month. He hopes to create brews more reflective of Jordan's native flavors and hopes to transform local tastes.

David Novotny (ElEng’90, MS’96) received a Department of Commerce Silver Medal for his work as part of a National Institute of Standards and Technology team. The team designed and implemented a new type of high-frequency antenna measurement system based on accurately controlling an industrial robot with a laser tracker.

Last fall, Phillip De Leon (MElEngr’92; PhD’95) was named associate dean of research and doctoral studies at the New Mexico State University College of Engineering. Phillip has been with NMSU since 1996 and was the first recipient of the John and Tome Nakayama Professorship in Engineering for Teaching Excellence. He has published 70 papers in international journals and has four U.S. patents.

Ryan Carlson (ElEngr’96) is chief marketing officer of Okta, where he oversees demand generation, brand, customer marketing, public relations, analyst relations, partner marketing and corporate communications. He lives in Oakland with his wife and two young daughters.

California formal verification services company Oski Technology, Inc. appointed Dave Perry (ElEngrCompSci'80) chief operating officer. He previously served as vice president of engineering at Arteris. He also worked for Silicon Graphics, Inc., serving in multiple development and leadership roles for multiprocessor systems. Dave has seven granted U.S. patents and one pending in microprocessor, system and SoC design.

Allan Steinhardt (MElEngr’81, PhD’83) has joined robotic vision company AEye Inc. as their chief engineer. Steinhardt formerly served as a chief scientist at DARPA, a vice president and chief scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton, radar project lead at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and director of signal processing for the defense industry at BAE/Alphatech.

Derek Thompson (CompSci, ElEngr’85) was recognized by Intel Corporation with a promotion to principal engineer. Before joining Intel in 1997, Derek worked as a design engineer for NCR Corporation.

Michael Rochester (ElEngrCompSci’85) recently joined Dallas-based Westmount Realty Capital as their senior director for engineering and construction. Rochester has more than 20 years of experience in property engineering and construction, and is a LEED Green Associate.Sandia National Laboratories researcher Ray Byrne (MElEngr’89) has been named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for his work on miniature robotics and grid integration of energy storage. Byrne joined Sandia in May 1989.

At age 91, wind energy pioneer Palmer Carlin (ElEngr'45; MS'52; PhD'55) can be found at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Wind Technology Center in Golden, Colo., three days a week answering questions from the public about renewable energy. While working at CU as an electrical engineering professor, he built an early wind turbine prototype and discovered his calling. He's been with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ever since. "We're trying to keep the planet's temperature down," Palmer says. "Wind is one way to do that."