Joran Booth, Ph.D. in Mech. Eng.

Lecturer / Associate Research Scientist

Yale University, New Haven, CT, Jul 2018 to Present

• Created an industry-classroom partnership with 6+ companies, including SQ4D, ENVIPCO, SeaCorp, Electric Boat, Quikrete, Akribis Systems, Essentium
• Managed 3 to 6 small teams per year over a wide range of technical projects and bringing projects to the successful completion of a prototype.
• Received a $200k grant from NSF for investigating autonomous networks of shape-changing tendon robots (known as tensegrity robots)
• Engineered and manufactured a fully amphibious turtle robot featured in Science, Nature, and other high profile journals
• Published other high-impact robotics research papers, featured in Science Robotics, Nature, & PNAS.
• Created and taught the entire upper-division mechanical engineering design curriculum at Yale
• Mentored and helped launch the careers of dozens of undergrads, grad students, and post-docs
• Contributed key insights and problem scope for 30+ technical projects including topics from recyclables sorting mechanisms, to concrete 3D printers and accessories, to an ultra-low-cost ultra-high precision XY robotic stages, to an SAE racecar chassis, to rapid tree-planting device, and several others

Postdoctoral Associate Researcher

Yale University, Jul 2017 to Jul 2018 & Purdue University, Jul 2016 to Jul 2017, Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, PI in both cases

• Designed, built, and tested a modular robotic skin capable of manipulating inert objects
• Designed, built a morphing robot limb for an amphibious robot
• Designed, built, tested, and implemented a modular, miniaturized digital pressure regulator capable of embedded, distributed control for soft robots.
• Mentored and advised four Ph.D. students and 4 undergraduate students

Technical Adviser

BOCE LLC, West Lafayette, IN, May 2015 to Dec 2016

• Assisted in founding this start-up with former students
• Provided technical and business guidance for a quick-release mount for Go-Pro cameras
• Established a Kickstarter campaign

Graduate Research Assistant

Dr. K. Ramani & Dr. T. Reid, Co-PI’s, W. Lafayette, Indiana, Aug 2010 to Jul 2016

• Research emphasis on sketching, idea generation, functional analysis, and design environments
• Synthesizing new research directions, reading and writing papers, and conducting experiments
• Presented engineering sketching workshops to 200-300 people at the Maker’s Faire in May 2012

Lecturer

Purdue University, W. Lafayette, Indiana, Aug 2015 to Dec 2015, Dr. John Starkey, advisor

• Primary lecturer for one section as a part of the prestigious Lambert Fellowship
• Wrote tests for my section, and otherwise managed my section independent from the others
• Taught advanced machine design topics, including shafts, bearings, brakes, and bolts analysis

Lab Coordinator

Purdue University, W. Lafayette, Indiana, Aug 2011 to May 2015

Examples of student work can be found here.

• Awarded the Magoon Award for Teaching  in 2012 and 2015 and Teaching Academy Award for Graduate Teaching in 2015 for being in the top 5% of department TA’s
• Head Teaching Assistant from Jan 2015 to May 2015
• Promoted from lab assistant to lab coordinator after first semester
• Taught 48 students per semester how to apply design method by Ullman to various projects

Manufacturing Engineering Design Intern

IMMI, Westfield, IN, Jun 2014 to Sept 2014

• Designed assembly fixtures for high-mix, low-volume assembly lines
• Introduced a platform for controlling and measuring manual assembly processes
• Designed a fixture which combined 3 assembly operations into 1 step, while also improving ergonomics

STEP/MITE Coordinator

Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN, May 2012 to Jul 2012

• Coordinated tours for around 300 high school students
• Developed a product dissection exercise for the tour, with high acclaim from the department and participants

Intellectual Property Intern

Booth-Udall LLC, Tempe, AZ, May to Jul 2010

• Prepared prosecution arguments for filed patents
• Drafted several provisional patent applications
• Analyzed the patentability of a product by reviewing 20+ patents

Prints Manager

Mity-Lite, Orem, UT, May to Nov 2008

• Developed reusable parametric models of an entire product line
• Validated manufacturing drawings by measuring and comparing manufactured parts
• Produced approximately 400 manufacturing drawings in Solidworks in 3 months

Mechanical Engineering Intern

Total Quality Systems, Roy, UT, May to Aug 2007

• Discovered a geometric error perpetuated through several revisions of a model of cockpit
• Read, interpreted, and redrafted over 200 ITAR drawings for the A-10 Thunderbolt II

Less relevant work experience has been excluded for brevity, but is available upon request.