Michelle Thompson

High Risk Management - provided consistently high performance in management roles that involved large amounts of financial, schedule, and design risk in both commercial and non-profit sectors. Committed to mentoring and scaling up organizations that face daunting challenges or long odds. Identified and solved regulatory roadblocks for the amateur radio satellite service. Evaluated risks in changing liquid crystal display for a phone project which reversed product cancellation.

Cost Reduction - built and directed a cost reduction team that intelligently cut $4.50 from an in-production mobile cellular phone. Planned and executed changes for a central office that cut costs in half while increasing voice and data service quality for customers.

Implementation and Verification - completed the implementation of a central algorithm for a satellite mobile station modem. Rigorously verified the results against the system model by collaborating with the system engineer. Established a verification and validation lab for open source satellite designs.

Design Redefinition - coordinated and documented a large amount of design redefinition between hardware and software teams on a satellite phone project, resulting in the resolution of multiple long-standing "deal-killers" and clearing the path for successful deployment.

Statistical Evaluation - established improved methods of gathering, calculating, and presenting talk and standby data for mobile phone products. Identified statistical anomalies in trouble reports that absolved engineering of culpability for ESD damage and provided a path forward for marketing and sales.

Design Review - planned and executed successful design reviews that consistently saved time and money and refocused scattered engineering effort. Motivated most strongly when the cause appears lost and key stakeholders are at an impasse.

• Member of the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitors Program 2017 - 2019.
• Founded the San Diego IEEE Information Theory Society Chapter February 2020.
• Member of the Board of Space Industry Advisors at Virginia Tech University. November 2020 - present.
• Amateur Radio Relay League Technical Advisor November 2020 - present.
• Conference Organizer GNU Radio Conference. Designed and ran the 4-day Wireless Capture the Flag Event for 2017, organized and executed a DVB-S2 hackfest for 2018, served as co-chair the 2019 GNU Radio Conference and chaired the 2020 event.
• Project Lead for the Organ Donor Project, a touring Artificially Intelligent Pipe Organ (Opus 1) made with modern materials and manufacturing techniques that was successfully demonstrated at major events including Maker Faire, STEAM Maker Fest, Burning Man, and YouTopia. 2015 - 2019.
• Planned and executed fundraising events for Rady's Children's Hospital. Provided the Carmel Valley Unit with technical support for both operations and website content.
• FOX-1 Telemetry Coding And Modulation Design. November 2013 Co-authored a satellite telemetry design with Phil Karn, KA9Q, Paul Williamson, KB5MU. Satellites using this design are currently operating in orbit.
• Theme Coordinator, San Diego Mini Maker Faire 2013. Recruited and supported exhibitors for the highly successful San Diego Mini Maker Faire. Developed and published a hands-on event for the Faire called Build-a-Game Workshop. Workshop documents are in the public domain.
• Additional formal educational coursework includes Hardware Design with VHDL, Embedded Applications with the ARM Microprocessor, Fundamentals of Digital Communications, Systems Requirements Analysis, Embedded Real Time Operating Systems, RISC-V CPU in Verilog, Music Theory.