Bill's CV
SUMMARY OF SKILLS AND INTERESTS
Hardware:
Have developed and used experimental testbeds for electromechanical devices for use in verifying software models.
Have developed high-speed switching and various pulse power control circuits for electromechanical, power supply and signal amplification applications.
Hands-on skills in developing, testing and analysing active and passive analog circuits and subsystems from DC to 100GHz. This includes antennas, oscillators, amplifiers, PLLs, mixers, filters, matching, transmission systems, digital circuits, high-voltage power supplies and some free-electron devices for radio communications and industrial applications.
Capable of modeling and generating special PCB layouts and interconnects for power/RF/microwave/high-speed digital devices (including printed antennas). Carried out much early-career work in this area.
Able to develop and use specialised models for simulations of designs (SPICE, ADS Momentum, LineCalc, NEC, Maple as well as personally developed numerical codes).
Software:
Developed several numerical models for electromechanical systems (pertaining to linear motors, solenoidal actuators, mass accelerators).
Expert in scientific/technical computing and software design using C and FORTRAN on Unix based systems. Applications under Linux are a speciality.
Extensive knowledge of electromagnetic, thermal and fluid modeling using finite element and boundary element methods.
Have experience with developing real-time and embedded software for instrumentation and communications applications.
Experience in mentoring and managing small software and hardware technical development teams.
Knowledge of shell scripting (BASH) as well as the basic use of awk, sed, and other scripting tools under Unix.
Have extensive experience with the LaTeX electronic publishing suite.
WORK EXPERIENCE:
April 2008-Present Senior RF engineer,
Orban Microwave Products, Leuven, Belgium
Have leading role in development of
deep-space X-band coherent transponder.
Involved in
developing sophisticated models of coherent transponders and
phase-locked receivers in low SNR environments. Developed RF and microwave analog circuits and systems (e.g. LNAs,frequency converters, transmitters, receivers, sensors, measuring systems). Developed methods of measuring the ability of coherent receivers to track uplink carriers (Allan Deviation).
December 2006-April 2008: RF/microwave
systems engineer at AsicAhead, Hasselt, Belgium.
Developed system designs for WiMAX radios.
Devoted much time to developing methods for
characterising and debugging RFICs (e.g. Fractional PLL
performance characterisation, multimode RF impedance and noise
de-embedding).
Devised methods for constructing wide-band
transmission-line baluns. November
2003 - December 2006: Independent software and hardware
developer.
Developed two software packages for modeling
electromechanical devices (linear motor, mass accelerator).
Published work in IEEE transactions.
Built a series of three highly advanced
computer models for electromagnetic wave propagation,
electromechanical devices and fluid mechanics using finite
element/finite difference methods.
Prepared a real-time microcontroller-based
force logging device, RF PLL synthesizers, Class- E RF power
amplifiers, plasma generators, ISM-band radio designs.
Built large mailing address databases for the
Solar Expo in Vicenza (2004, 2005) using data sifting applications
crafted in C and various Unix shell scripting languages.
Prepared more than 15 articles, presentations
and reports for dissemination in the last 5 years. February
2001-November 2003: Senior Research Associate and
Lecturer, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia.
Carried out an investigation of analog RF
subsystems in 3G base stations as part of a $9M commercial
performance and feasibility study. Comprehensive report produced.
Designed and constructed low-cost microwave
transmitter and receiver circuits at 1.2 and 2.4 GHz as part of
student project development work. Also devised filters and
amplifiers in Ku band VSAT terminals.
Built benchmarking models for direct-sequence
spread-spectrum communication systems and optically based
millimeter-wave oscillators for SIDEARM (potential $1-2M project).
Initiated and managed an $15K project which
aimed to develop an initial study into modeling for the
manufacturing of microstructured optical fibres using cluster
computing methods.
Organised events for the local chapter of the
IEEE. Managed visits by distinguished lecturers and raised funds
(about $10K) for short term visiting scholar. May
2000 - February 2001: Project Engineer at Victoria University,
Melbourne as part of the Australian Telecommunications Cooperative
Research Centre.
Developed computer models of signal
impairments due to receiver noise in software steerable antennas.
Presented results at 2002 IEEE-MTT Symposium.
Designed and constructed a wide variety of
electronic devices: encoders, decoders, microwave filters,
low-noise amplifiers, oscillators and PLL synthesizers,
beamformers, power dividers, antennas and SSB frequency translators
(mostly in L and S band).
Carried out antenna pattern measurements. August
1994 - February 2000: Postdoctoral Research scientist under CSR
Fellowship at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Organisation, Forestry and Forest Products Division.
Developed finite-element, finite-difference
and Monte-Carlo based computational tools for heat/mass (moisture)
transfer in porous media, electromagnetics, and viscoelasticity in
2 and 3 dimensions.
Interacted regularly with team members and
industrial partners.
Prepared 14 detailed reports and
publications.
>Supervised 3 research students. July
1993 - July 1994: Guest Lecturer at RMIT, Melbourne. Prepared
and delivered course material on UHF/microwave design, fibre-optic
communications and the theory and mechanics of the Internet. EDUCATION: January
1990 - June 1993: Completed Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering at
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA. Program focused on Field
Theory and Solid State Physics. Title of dissertation: “Finite
Element Modeling of Transmission Lines in Two and Three Dimensions.” January
1987 - December 1989: Received Master of Science degree from the
University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
September
1981 - December 1985: Earned Bachelor of Science in Electrical
Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
(5 year program). SOCIETY
MEMBERSHIPS:
I.E.E.E. Microwave Theory and Techniques,
Antennas and Propagation, Circuits and Systems and Communication
Societies;
Chapter Chair of I.E.E.E. Microwave Theory
and Technique/Antennas and Propagation Societies, Victorian
Section, 2001-2002;
Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics (SIAM). LANGUAGE
CAPABILITY:
Italian: Reading: Good, Writing: Good,
Speaking: Good
German: Reading: Good, Writing: Good,
Speaking: Fair
Dutch: Reading: Good, Writing: Fair,
Speaking: Fair
English: Mother tongue.
Last
updated: 20110404