Software Engineer & Data Scientist (Applied AI / ML) - Savvy Aviation

April 2022 - Present

• Lead developer of two production ML programs — Failing Exhaust Valve Analytics (FEVA) and Generalized Anomaly Detection (GADfly) — that flag developing mechanical issues before failure; FEVA has produced 58,000+ reports across 7,400+ aircraft (~1,400/month)
• Designed the agentic tool suite for Chat with my Aircraft, a production LLM assistant that lets maintenance managers query any aircraft in plain English, chaining self-contained tools and cross-checking every answer against structured records
• Shipped a production LLM pipeline (AI Analysis Review) that scores likely failure modes from flight telemetry and drafts analyst reports, handing off to a human when uncertain
• Built the assistant's retrieval (OpenSearch hybrid keyword + vector search over an OCR→embeddings pipeline) and an evaluation/feedback loop that drove a ~7× inference-cost reduction while preserving fidelity
• Data wrangling and modeling on fleet-scale, messy sensor/time-series data (~6.8M flight hours) in Python (pandas, NumPy, SciPy, scikit-learn, TensorFlow/Keras) and SQL
• Supervised collaborative work with the UC Davis Business Analytics Program

Director - The Savvy Aviation Foundation (non-profit research)

2025 - Present

• Direct a research initiative applying LLM classification to NTSB accident-causation analysis — built a narrative classifier separating mechanical from non-mechanical causes at 88% accuracy / 96% recall vs. NTSB coded findings, surfacing factors the official codes never captured
• Paired 16 years of NTSB records with ~6.8M flight hours of fleet engine-monitor data to compute among the first exposure-normalized GA maintenance-risk hazard rates (hazard-rate / survival modeling); classifier and dataset in prep for open publication

Certified Flight Instructor (CFII) - ABC Flight Training LLC

July 2022 - Present

• Commercial pilot (instrument); CFII with ~930 total hours and ~470 hours of instruction given across 25+ aircraft types
• Conduct primary flight and ground instruction under 14 CFR Part 61; flight reviews, aircraft checkouts, and FAA WINGS instruction
• Teach complex technical material to learners from zero, applying a data-driven approach that uses flight- and engine-data review to target each learner's weak points

R&D Engineer - Pivotal Systems Corporation

July 2017 - July 2022

• Led technical program management for new products in critical semiconductor-manufacturing applications, owning prototype development and delivery against aggressive schedules
• Drove the design, testing, and integration of next-generation atomic layer deposition (ALD) systems for a semiconductor OEM, leading cross-functional teams across sensing and actuation subsystems
• Guided manufacturing, process, and automation development for High Flow products that doubled manufacturing throughput in one year
• Expertise specifying and testing piezoresistive pressure sensors, thermal sensors, piezoceramic actuators, and ADC/DAC signal conditioning

Experimentation & Prototyping Manager - Marine Innovation Unit, USMC Reserve (Major)

March 2022 - Present

• Member of the unit's AI detachment, delivering AI solutions to the Marine Corps at scale
• Evaluate emerging technologies in operational test environments against current and future requirements, often with no established baseline
• Develop new project initiatives and concepts to improve MAGTF capabilities, and liaise with government and non-government offices on shared technical challenges

Earlier U.S. Marine Corps Service (Communications / Cyber)

2015 - 2022

• MARFORCYBER Reserve Capture-the-Flag Team (2021–2022) — competed monthly in cyber CTF events (team BandOfBinaries)
• S-6 / Communications Platoon Commander, 6th Engineer Support Battalion (2017–2019) — planned and operated tactical networks; led and mentored a platoon. Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal (2019)
• Special Projects Officer, Communication-Electronics School (2016–2017) — Letter of Appreciation for curriculum review; co-developer of 2nd-place (Warfighting) Marine Corps Mobile Application Challenge submission

Graduate Research & Teaching Assistant - Washington State University

August 2009 - May 2015

• Co-developed a novel super-resolution fluorescence microscopy method (still in use by the lab) to study binding allostery in ligand-gated ion channels
• Ran all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase on an HPC cluster; heavy use of numerical optimization, linear algebra, and ODE/PDE methods
• Contributed to published collaborative research with groups in the US, UK, and Switzerland; presented at regional, national, and international conferences

Adjunct Instructor - Department of Physics, American University

May - August 2009

• Instructed both sessions of calculus-based summer physics courses; designed and graded all pre-lab quizzes and lab worksheets with minimal oversight

A. O. Barden, A. S. Goler, et al., "Tracking Individual Membrane Proteins and Their Biochemistry: The Power of Direct Observation," Neuropharmacology, 2015.

A. S. Goler, "Understanding Molecular Machines: Theoretical and Experimental Approaches," doctoral dissertation, ProQuest #3715214, 2015.

Ph.D., Physics

Washington State University, 2015

• Primary research in molecular biophysics; twice awarded the NSF GAANN Fellowship (2009, 2011)
• Claire and William Band Scholarship for Achievement in Theoretical Physics

B.S., Physics & Mathematics (double major)

American University, 2009

• Summer research in quantum information theory and astrophysical fluids

Volunteer Dog Walker - Friends of Homeless Animals

September 2015 - June 2016

Washington DC Student Ambassador - NASA International Year of Astronomy

August 2008 - August 2009