CV

Education

BSc in Electrical & Computer Engineering and Minor in Computer Science with High Distinction
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), May 2020
- GPA: 3.83

Experience

Research Fellow, Harvard Biodesign Lab, MA, April 2022 – Present
- Contributing to the design and development of a new lightweight, wearable device to deliver effective functional electrical stimulation (FES) for gait assistance and mobility restoration of post-stroke individuals
- Developed a real-time, multi-threaded, embedded system application running on FreeRTOS (real-time operating system kernel) for this FES device while building a technical foundation for future work in the lab
- Participating in research addressing issues in FES wearable systems through creating a semi-dynamic calibration procedure, providing easy user-donning ability, and developing an adaptive controller to deliver FES more effectively
- Involved in electronic hardware design and PCBA bring-ups of the new FES device
- Creating a GUI (graphical user interface) in Python to connect with the wearable device wirelessly, control it, and plot sensor/controller data in real-time
- Participating in kinematic data collections and analyses from test participants
- Adapted firmware to perform UART signal filtering and modified hardware to connect an additional electrical stimulator (Hasomed) and therefore give the ability to control double the number of electrodes on lab’s current mobile FES platform
- Testing and troubleshooting lab’s IMUs (Xsens, Bosch) and updating/debugging IMU firmware
Electrical Design Engineer, Lifeline Systems Company (formerly Philips Lifeline), MA, July 2020 – April 2022
- Develop schematics and layouts for multiple layer PCB designs using PADS Mentor Graphics and Altium Designer
- Created geofencing algorithm in C with different levels of sensitivity utilizing Wi-Fi Access Points
- Designed 2-layer PCB, assembled PCBA and 3D-Printed case to create a plug and play J-link debugger setup to facilitate firmware development
- Contributed to testing and debugging for critical hardware and firmware related issues and conducted root cause investigations for each
- Delegated and supervised hardware design, testing, and documentation tasks to Co-ops/Interns
- Participated in innovation activities where new technologies and project ideas are demonstrated and evaluated
- Developed test scripts and steps, wrote design verification protocols, executed them, and wrote supplementary design verification reports
Embedded Software Intern, Bose Corporation, MA, June 2019 – August 2019
- Developed a plug-and-play automation tool (lightweight framework) in Python for easy deployment that performs common mobile functions and has Bluetooth connectivity and monitoring capabilities
- Serialized AT commands that are inputted to a GSM module and are exploited by a client-server setup using the RPC protocol (RPyC, Pyserial)
- Automated firmware flashing for devices under test using the Qualcomm USB Debug driver to improve timing, reliability and recoverability of updating test devices with new firmware and to ensure independence between nightly test runs
MIT Sea Grant Lab Intern, MIT, MA, May 2018 – August 2018
https://github.com/FivosJKavassalis/MIT_SeaGrant_Drifter
- Developed and implemented electronic part of a variation of the Lagrangian drifting vehicle by establishing satellite (RockBLOCK/Iridium SBD) and other wireless communications (LoRa Radio) equipped with sensors measuring water parameters, a GPS and an IMU (through I2C, UART) to support research in ocean acidification

Projects

Major Qualifying Project (MQP), NECAMSID/ICAS Lab, WPI, September 2019 – May 2020
https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-051820-192624/
- Designed a wearable, non-invasive sensor (PPG sensor) that detects SpO2, heart rate, respiratory rate and HRV
- Processed sensor data through microcontroller, extracted and sent wirelessly (Bluetooth LE) to our Android application
- Created Android application backed by Firebase Realtime Database that uses the data received to periodically calculate the user’s health parameters, to clearly display and analyse the resulting data and to provide health recommendations to the user
- Presented our work in the 2020 IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference (URTC), October 9-11
- Team selected as the finalist for the WPI Provost MQP Competition and received honorary mention
ECE Design Project: Habit Helper, WPI, March 2019 - May 2019 https://github.com/FivosJKavassalis/Habit-Helper
- Built a prototype of a wireless, wearable device which aids the user in correcting poor posture and low physical activity
- Collected measurements from accelerometer which are processed by an Arduino Nano microcontroller to calculate statistics and provide helpful reminders to the user that will be sent wirelessly (Bluetooth) to our application
- Created smartphone application to show users health results and notify them of their condition
- Team selected as a finalist for the 2019 WPI ECE Design Challenge Competition
Software Defined Radio BLE Communication System with ThingSpeak Integration, WPI, January 2020 - March 2020 https://fivosjkavassalis.github.io/files/ECE%204305%20Final%20Project%20Report.pdf
- Created an end-to-end Software Defined Radio (SDR) system that uses the BLE standard (ADALM-PLUTO, MATLAB)
- Sensor data are transmitted and received over BLE through related data channels and packet error rate (PER) is determined
- After the received data are decoded, demodulated, and processed, they are uploaded to the cloud (ThingSpeak)
ECE Communications Project: Search and Pick a Seat (SPAS), WPI, March 2018 - May 2018
https://github.com/FivosJKavassalis/ECE2305_Team14
- Designed/Implemented an IoT system comprising a wireless network with an aggregator node and multiple sensor nodes (TDMA, TTL w/ ultrasonic sensor) connected to the Internet that obtained information on the availability of library cubicles (433MHz RF transmitters/receivers) and posted the results to our web app
Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP), WPI, October 2018 – December 2018 https://sites.google.com/site/ve18bells
- Designed/Implemented a methodology to evaluate structural integrity issues in bell towers in Venice, Italy based on analysis of motion caused by inertial forces due to bell swinging (AxisVM, Accelerometers and FFT Analysis w/ MATLAB)
- Developed a web app (React) to collect and present data about Venetian bells and bell towers

Conference Paper

A Photoplethysmography Wearable with Long-term Heart Rate Variability Detection Algorithm

B. Chieng, F. Kavassalis, F. Baudino and U. Guler, "A Photoplethysmography Wearable with Long-term Heart Rate Variability Detection Algorithm," 2020 IEEE MIT Undergraduate Research Technology Conference (URTC), 2020, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/URTC51696.2020.9668881.

Skills

Software: C, C++, Java, Python, MATLAB, PADS Mentor Graphics, Altium Designer, EAGLE, R, Verilog, Git, SVN, JIRA, Arduino, Appium, Pytest, Jenkins, Android Development, Real-time Databases (Firebase Database), React, Payment Systems (Braintree, Stripe), Bootstrap 4, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Node, MongoDB, REST API
Boards: TI MSP430 Family, STM32L151/152, BMD-350, TI CC1312R, Basys3 Artix-7 FPGA Board, Raspberry Pi, Adafruit Feather 32u4, Arduino
Hardware: Soldering, Desoldering, Oscilloscope, Signal Generator, Digital Multimeter, Vector Network Analyzer, Battery Simulator, DC Power Supply

Leadership/Achievements

IEEE Honor Society for Electrical and Computer Engineers (Eta Kappa Nu), WPI, May 2019 - Present
WPI Provost Competition Finalist, honorary mention for MQP Work, May 2020
Teaching Assistant for Electrical and Computer Engineering Design Course (ECE 2799), Oct 2019 - Dec 2019
WPI ECE Design Challenge Competition Finalist, May 2019
Dean’s List, WPI, 2016, 2018, 2019
Hellenic Student Association, Secretary, WPI, August 2017- May 2018

Fivos Kavassalis

CV