Hey there, I'm Jose
OSM Building Finder
Find and export building footprints from OpenStreetMap for any location worldwide.
RoboSpecNVIDIA GTC 2026 Contest
Converts plain-English task descriptions into complete, runnable NVIDIA Isaac Lab RL environment configs using the Nemotron LLM via NVIDIA NIM.
ALTA
Offline-first glucose monitoring app for continuous health tracking without internet.
METALSNASA Big Idea Challenge
NASA-funded inflatable cryogenic vessel for lunar infrastructure — winner of the Artemis Award.
About Me
Hey, I'm Jose. I grew up in Quito, Ecuador, and now I'm at Northwestern studying Mechanical Engineering and CS. I'm into mechatronics, robotics, and scalable software, especially the kind of work where you build something real, break it, fix it, and make it better. When I'm not building, I'm probably in the kitchen, listening to jazz, on a tennis court, or trying to make the perfect espresso. This portfolio is my running log of projects, ideas, and what I'm exploring next.
EDUCATION
Northwestern University
M.S. Computer Science, Research in Machine Learning
Evanston, IL
Graduate research in ML-driven optical biosensing, fusion pipelines, and computer vision for non-invasive health monitoring.
Northwestern University
B.S. Mechanical Engineering: Robotics, Minor in Economics
Evanston, IL
Coursework in mechatronics, robotics, scalable software architecture, statistical learning, computer systems, and software engineering.
University of Hong Kong
Exchange Semester
Hong Kong
International exchange exploring global engineering perspectives and cross-cultural collaboration.
WORK
Northwestern University
Researcher
Evanston, IL
Building an ML fusion pipeline for a dual-modality optical biosensor achieving ~16% MARD on 200+ calibration samples.
Northwestern Segal Design Institute
Engineering Shop Trainer
Evanston, IL
Authored C++ control scripts for Fanuc robotic arms, cutting setup time 50% and reducing fabrication errors 60%.
Curious Cardinals
Mentor
Mentoring high school students one-on-one in engineering and programming fundamentals.
NASA's 2024 Big Idea Challenge
NASA Funded Researcher
Evanston, IL
Secured a $150K NASA grant and programmed C++ TIG-weld paths for a metal inflatable cryogenic vessel with 20x stowed-to-deployed volume.
Bayteq
AI Engineering Intern
Quito, Ecuador
Built an OpenCV pipeline improving OCR accuracy 30% and integrated an OpenAI chatbot saving $11K/month in labor costs.
Columbia University
Research Scholar
New York, NY
Top 1% summer research scholar working on interdisciplinary engineering projects.
ORGANIZATIONS
NOCODILE AI
Member
Hong Kong
HKU-based AI organization making artificial intelligence accessible through no-code and low-code platforms.
NUSTARS
Mechanical & Software Lead
Evanston, IL
Northwestern's aerospace organization — led mechanical and software teams for NASA's Big Idea Challenge, winning the Artemis Award.