About Me

I'm Preston, a research engineer focused on real-time sensing and control systems. My work spans the full stack — embedded firmware and edge deployments, GPU-accelerated processing, and the researcher-facing tools that tie it all together.

I spend most of my time on neural interfaces — noninvasive and intracortical brain-computer interfaces, closed-loop organoid experiments, and optical instrumentation like digital holography and OCT. I've also built real-time monitoring systems for laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing and provisioned edge compute platforms for field-deployed sensing pipelines.

More recently, I've been building a web platform for integrated photonics — tracking devices from tapeout through wafer fabrication, collecting characterization data, and running automated processing pipelines that feed into an interactive dashboard.

Across these projects I've picked up experience with embedded systems and firmware (Rust, C/C++), GPU-accelerated computing, scientific Python, edge deployments (NVIDIA Jetson), computer vision, web applications, and reproducible infrastructure with Nix, Docker, and CI/CD.

Open Source

I'm a core contributor to ezmsg, a pure-Python DAG framework for real-time pipelines backed by shared memory. It's been adopted by multiple research groups for neuro and optics work.

I'm also the sole firmware developer for DC Mini, an open-hardware 16-channel EEG wearable. The firmware is written in Rust with a three-crate architecture (BSP, boot manager, application) and a Nix-based reproducible toolchain.

Background

I'm currently at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where I work in the Neural Interfaces group. Before joining full-time, I interned there in the Space Sector doing spacecraft avionics testing on embedded Xilinx SoCs. I also spent time at Gulfstream Aerospace working avionics on the G500/G600 program and at FreeWave Technologies doing system testing for radio products.

I hold an M.S. and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Mississippi State University, where my graduate research focused on UAS-based P-band receivers for soil moisture sensing and wearable sensor systems for motion capture. I was a two-time NASA Fellow through the Mississippi Space Grant Consortium.

Outside of Work

When I'm not writing code or soldering, you'll find me on a golf course or tennis court. I also had a brief foray into endurance sports — I completed the Lake Placid Ironman in July 2024, my first and (so far) only triathlon.