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Nicholas G Lesniewski-Laas

Looking to build the best engineering teams to solve the toughest engineering problems

Experience

Director of Electrical Engineering, 2018–present

Director of Systems Engineering, 2016–present

Sunrise Labs, Inc

• Team Management:
  • Manage two teams: a team of 12 Electrical Engineers and a team of 6 Systems Engineers.
  • Mentor engineers in multiple disciplines, predominantly systems, electrical, and software engineering.
  • Encourage employees to develop new skills and to learn to tackle problems beyond their comfort zone.
  • Manage staffing levels across all projects so that every project has the right talent mix to succeed.
  • Contribute to all project proposals that include electrical or systems engineering.
  • Manage group growth, including strategic hiring to round out the group skillset, building / outfitting new lab space, and keeping us on top of industry trends in tools and methods.
• Project Management:
  • Manage projects with teams ranging from 1 to 7 engineers, schedules ranging from 6 wks to 2 years, and budgets from tens of thousands to millions of dollars.
  • Focus primarily on concept and feasibility projects with significant technical challenges.
  • Implement Agile-like development process in all projects.
• Systems Engineering:
  • Design system architectures for systems ranging in complexity from simple IoT devices to complex electromechanical life support devices.
  • Develop system models, including high-level performance analyses and highly detailed analytical models such as power consumption modeling.
  • Perform trade-off analyses and communicate results to project managers and to the customers.
  • Perform hazard analyses including top-down analyses, such as fault tree analysis, and bottom-up analyses, such as FMEA.
  • Align the product vision with the customer.
  • Direct electrical, mechanical, software, and human factors engineers toward a common vision for the product.
  • Review the engineering outputs and analyze the technical performance metrics.
  • Provide direct inputs and guidance to the electrical, mechanical, and software design details.
  • Develop and manage system and subsystem requirements.
• Electronics Design:
  • Designed a novel handheld neurostimulator intended for use in brain surgery:
    • The electrical specifications exceeded the specifications of existing neurostimulators.
    • BOM reduction to 25 parts (from over 200 in predicate device) leveraging clever usage of peripherals available in mid-range PIC16 MCU.
    • Miniaturized to fit entirely in the hand (no cords).
    • Electronics designed to survive ETO sterilization.
    • Cost reduced to ~$10 to allow a disposable use mode.
  • Designed a clever solution to cost-reduce a consumer/medical device by integrating most of the peripheral functionality into a Silego GreenPAK device:
    • Reduced BOM by 15 parts (out of only ~30 parts in the original BOM).
    • Reduced CoGs by almost 80¢ at 20M per annum production quantities.
    • Implemented NiMH battery monitoring and cutoff circuit to prevent undervoltage failures of primary microcontroller.
    • Implemented NiMH battery charging including constant current, constant voltage, and trickle charge, with only 3 external parts. No op amps were available in the Silego part so closed loop current control was achieved with an internal comparator, internal voltage reference, and a single capacitor as a filter (leveraging the high on resistance of the Silego GPIO pin's drive FETs to filter the control signal).
    • Eliminated a discrete soft-switch circuit by building a little bit of debouncing logic and minimal state management into one of the smallest Silego parts.
  • Designed an ultra low profile optical presence detector for a microwatt IoT device with extremely high sensitivity and specificity.
  • Continually contribute to every electronics project at Sunrise:
    • As EE team lead, I review every electronics design (~25/year) at the schematic, layout, and system levels.
    • Designed a Labview-interfaced test platform for direct measurement of motor efficiency for a class III life support device for which we designed a direct drive motor to eliminate gear noise and dramatically improve reliability.
    • Frequently contribute to design for EMC and ESD-tolerance.
    • Provide guidance on DfR (design for reliability) such as how best to strain relieve wiring / cabling.
    • Analyze circuit performance with paper analyses, leveraging symbolic and numerical computation tools (pylab, matlab, etc) and SPICE.
• Software Development:
  • Designed and implemented algorithms for data model management in a Xamarin (C#) cross-platform mobile app.
  • Designed and implemented multiple state machines using custom frameworks (C, C++, Python), QP (C++), and stateless (C#).
  • Designed and implemented the all of the firmware for a novel handheld neurostimulator. All of the functionality, including waveform generation, configuration, safety monitoring, and communications were implemented in 8-bit PIC assembly.

Staff Electrical Engineer, Advanced Technology Team, 2010–2016

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University

• Managed "Active Insoles" medical device project, including requirements generation, scope of work, setting customer expectations, and overseeing a multidisciplinary design team.^[1]
• Principal Investigator on 4 human studies investigating Stochastic Resonance for balance, stability, and athletic performance.
• Developed design process controls including requirements for documentation (requirements, theory of operation, test & verification, FMEA) and design reviews.
• Designed, built, tested, and deployed medical devices for clinical research in hospital environments, such as electrical stimulators to enhance upper limb rehabilitation after stroke.^[2]
• Supported cutting edge research, such as hyper-elastic strain sensor measurement systems for human subject studies at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.^[3]

Engineering Design Freelancer/Consultant, 1997–2016

Mostly small project-based contracts

• 9-axis wearable wireless inertial measurement units that incorporate into existing human body network.^[4]
• Support production & test of low noise medical raman spectroscopy device.
• Performance optimization of user interface for 3D electronic design and analysis software.
• High-speed aircraft-mounted IR camera communications interface and algorithm development.

Control Systems Engineer, 2006–2010

Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, World Leader in Ion Implant

• Received "Excellence in Engineering" award for leading firmware development on a metrology project with high visibility and a challenging schedule.
• Earned "Value Engineering" award for leading a portable systems monitoring project that generated over $1 million in revenue and reduced production costs by $2 million annually.
• Designed and documented robust high voltage grounding system for next generation high energy ion implanter with operating voltages in excess of 1 megavolt and systemic arcing conditions.

Education

Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering

Bachelors of Science in Computer Systems Engineering

Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute - Troy, NY

• Developed control system and AI for fully autonomous dart-gun robot that beat the darts carnival game.
• Designed and implemented control and power systems for homemade electron discharge machining tool.

Publications, Patents, Etc

Publication

Miranda DL, Hsu WH, Petersen K, Fitzgibbons S, Niemi J, Lesniewski-Laas N, Walsh CJ. "Sensory Enhancing Insoles Modify Gait During Inclined Treadmill Walking With Load." Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2015 Nov 24. [Epub]

Publication

Miranda DL, Hsu WH, Gravelle D, Petersen K, Ryzman R, Niemi J, Lesniewski-Laas N. "Sensory enhancing insoles improve athletic performance during a hexagonal agility task." J Biomech. 2016 May 3. [Epub]

Patent

(EP3706133A1/WO2020182655A1) An electronic system for gathering data from an inhaler. [Espacenet]

Patent

(US-20210379393-A1) Electrotherapeutic waveform and pulse generation and delivery system and method. [UnifiedPatents]

Webinar

MassMEDIC: "SYSTEMS ENGINEERING FOR MEDICAL DEVICE DEVELOPMENT"^[5]

White Paper

What Systems Engineering means to Medical Device Development^[7]

Podcast

Guest on marketscale podcast discussing user needs.^[6]

References

1. Wyss Institute: Balance-Restoring Insoles (only early feasibility prototypes shown).
2. Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital: Improving Recovery After Stroke Via Electrical Stimulation of Proprioceptors.
3. Understanding Human-Space Suit Interaction To Prevent Injury During Extravehicular Activity.
4. Biosensics PAMSys-X "Custom Sensor Solution"
5. Description of MassMEDIC Webinar on Systems Engineering
6. Description of Marketscale Podcast
7. Sunrise "Systems Engineering for Medical Devices" whitepaper (co-authored with Phil Palmer)