Battery Engineering at Tesla, in Palo Alto.
About
I’ve been into cars for about as long as I could read. Supercar picture books, license plates on the road, quizzing my grandma on whatever drove by. I studied mechanical engineering at UCSB.
At school I was on Gaucho Racing, the Formula SAE Electric team, as Chief Electrical Engineer. We designed, built, and raced an electric car.
These days I’m a Mechanical Design Engineer in Battery Engineering at Tesla in Palo Alto. Off the clock it’s still cars — Miatas especially.
Experience
The current Tesla role is from LinkedIn. Earlier roles follow the November 19, 2024 résumé. Gaucho Racing is shown from November 2021 with no end date, because the résumé and the old site still said present.
Jul 2025 – Present
Palo Alto, CA
Tesla
Mechanical Design Engineer · Battery Engineering
Jun 2024 – Sep 2024
Palo Alto, CA
Tesla
Mechanical Design Engineering Intern · High Voltage Distribution
- Owned the design and DFM of two new die-cast high-voltage connector headers.
- Designed a new face seal profile, iterated with Ansys hyperelastic simulations, improving the contact pressure to reaction force ratio by 52% over existing designs.
- Designed critical-fastening snap joints, parametrically optimized for low insertion force and high retention force by linking CAD dimensions as Ansys input parameters across the design space.
- Evaluated face seal performance boundaries under worst-case top cover deflections across thicknesses, materials, and stamping geometries, cutting header per-unit cost by 10% after removing unnecessary fasteners.
- Routed harnesses and busbars in CAD to reduce bends and installation-order constraints.
Nov 2021 –
Santa Barbara, CA
Gaucho Racing (UCSB Formula SAE Electric)
Electrical Chief Engineer & Powertrain Lead
- Owned design and manufacturing of 8 wire-bonded and potted 2170 battery modules forming a 538 V, 6.2 kWh, 81.9 kW pack.
- Designed external HV distribution and internal ancillaries (main contactors, mid-pack main fuse, HV disconnect, battery maintenance plugs).
- Designed battery water-cooling cold plates, flow-simulated in SolidWorks Flow and validated the pressure-drop curve on a test rig.
- Built MATLAB thermal models for cell-level fusible link sizing and pack-level thermal limits.
Jun 2023 – Oct 2023
Goleta, CA
Seek Thermal
Mechanical Engineering Intern
- Designed and implemented heat sinking solutions for thermal camera microprocessor; simulated in Solidworks Thermal study and validated in environmental chamber.
- Machined go-no-go gauges for quantifying thermal shrinkage defects in injection molded PPSU plastic.
- Created Excel script for analyzing worst-case and statistical tolerance stack-ups.
- Created 30+ Agile ECOs and GD&T drawings for new products and product revisions.
- Designed and manufactured 3 blackbodies with operating temperatures from −40°C to 60°C for infrared sensor calibration.
Jun 2022 – Present
Santa Barbara, CA
California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCSB
Workshop Wizard & 3D Printer Tool Lead
- Instructed over 200 researchers and grad students in workshop and microfluidic equipment.
- Fabricated and delivered over 100 CNC milled, 3D printed, and laser cut custom user orders.
- Managed, repaired, and created SOPs for 3D printers and laser cutters (Formlabs Form 3, Ultimaker S5, Stratasys F270, Stratasys Objet 30 Pro, and Rayjet 300).
Apr 2023 – Sep 2023
Santa Barbara, CA
UCSB Thermofluid Energy Research Laboratory
Undergraduate Researcher
- CNC milled and 3D printed a fluid boiling fixture for a NASA ISS experiment, analyzing the role of surface structures on flow boiling instabilities.
- Researched and presented the use of vapor chambers, which utilize liquid-gas phase change, as a heat spreader for EV battery thermal management.
- Characterizing heat pipe thermal gradients and thermal conductivities using custom built test bench.
- Presented research on a novel EV battery cooling method at the UCSB CSEP Colloquium Poster Session in August 2023.
Education
Sep 2021 – Jun 2025
Santa Barbara, CA
University of California – Santa Barbara
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
- FSAE Electrical Chief Engineer & Powertrain Lead, Dean's List, TFEL Undergraduate Researcher, CNSI Workshop Wizard, Edison Research Scholar, Qualcomm MESA Idea Accelerator, Wind Ensemble Clarinetist, LoL Esports Player.
- Relevant coursework: Heat Transfer, Mechatronics, Materials, Thermodynamics, Circuits, Machine Learning, Statics, and Dynamics.
Amador Valley High School
Wind Ensemble I, Tennis #2 Singles, VEX Robotics State Excellence Award
Listen to our concerts (live from the Chicago Midwest Clinic)
Skills
From the November 19, 2024 résumé. Add or remove lines in content/profile.json.
- Design for Manufacturing
- GD&T · Worst-Case & Statistical Tolerance Analysis · Die Casting
- CAD, Simulations, & CAM
- Catia3DX · Ansys Mechanical · SolidWorks · HSMWorks
- Thermal Systems
- Matlab Lap Sim-coupled Battery Thermal Modeling · Fusible Link Testing · Battery Cold Plate
- EV Powertrain Design
- Custom Wire-bonded 538V 2170 Battery Modules · HV Connectors · Ancillaries
- CNC Machining
- Haas CNC Super Mini Mill · Wazer Water Jet Cutter · Trotec Laser Cutter
- 3D Printing
- Stratasys Objet 30 Pro & F270 · Formlabs Form 3 · MiiCraft 50 · Ultimaker S5 · Prusa i3 Mk.3
- Programming
- Matlab · Python (ScikitLearn & Tensorflow) · Arduino
Honors & awards
Academic
- 2023Dean's List, 3.75 GPA or higher
- 2021AP Scholar with Distinction, 9 AP tests with a 5 score
- 2021President's Education Award, Outstanding Academic Achievement — 35 ACT Score
- 2020National Merit Scholarship, Letter of Commendation
Volunteering & extracurricular
- 2023MESA Qualcomm Idea Accelerator Second Place, awarded for the JAM Navigation prototype
- 2021Gold Presidential Volunteer Award, over 500 volunteer hours
- 2018VEX EDR Robotics California State Excellence Award, most prestigious award for best all-around robot
- 2017VEX EDR Robotics Regional Champion, Tournament Champion
Contact
Mechanical Design Engineer, Battery Engineering at Tesla. Palo Alto, California.