02/15/2017
We had a guest speaker visit with us today. She's a member of the Society of Women Engineers (which Kate is a member of as a student) and spoke with us about light and laser technology that she works on and we talked about our light sensors with her.
Kendra (Albers) Schuettpelz
Research Engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute
Kendra earned her Bachelor of Science in Optical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. During her time as a student, Kendra interned in the Physics and Optical Engineering Department at Rose for one summer, and at NASA in Huntsville, Alabama for two summers.
After graduation from Rose-Hulman in May 2010, Kendra began her career as a Research Engineer at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). During her first five years at GTRI she worked in the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory in the Remote Sensing Division where she helped build lidar systems. The largest lidar, IACS (Integrated Atmospheric Characterization System), began phase III (build) shortly after Kendra was hired. As a result, she was able to help spec out certain optics to be used with a high power laser. She was in charge of organizing, tracking, and procuring $1.3M in parts for the lidar system. Once the optical components arrived, she helped install and align all the optics for the three subsystems in IACS, including a 20” telescope. In April 2015, the IACS Team received the Innovative Research Award.
In addition to the lidar work, Kendra has gained hands-on experience with image intensified and thermal imager night vision systems. She helps characterize the vision systems by reverse engineering the devices and performing optical analysis at both the system level as well as the component level. Then she can use NVSD software to model the devices under various environments and atmospheres which simulates how clearly the device could potentially see.
While working at GTRI, Kendra returned to school to pursue her MBA. In addition to graduating in May 2015 she also became certified as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. She is now seeking a challenging career using analytical skills to improve business operations.
