Electro Mechanical Systems and Design
Dr. Taylor is a mechanical engineer with a diverse background and years of experience solving tough problems and forming creative solutions. His areas of expertise are in engineering design, research, consumer products, and heat transfer systems. Dr. Taylor earned his Masters and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia where he designed, tested, and analyzed electric plasma devices to replace mechanical pressure wave generators. He combined high energy electric sparks with high-pressure cryogenic technologies to develop the first ever plasma pressure wave generator to drive a Stirling cryogenic cooler. This work used a combination of thermal fluids software analysis and primarily optical experimental methods to analyze the pressure waves generated by the devices.
Since graduation, he has been working in education, industry, and Skydra LLC. He was an educator and thesis advisor at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences where he took his passion for engineering design to instruct students on electromechanical systems. He taught them how to accomplish physical tasks with student constructed robots by using the design process and hands-on additive and subtractive manufacturing techniques.
Skydra LLC was formed with 2 friends to complete in the Water Abundance XPRIZE to alleviate the global water crisis with energy-efficient technologies that harvest drinking water from the air. Skydra took a unique approach to solving this problem by merging traditional and highly reliable mechanical condensing technologies with a new concept using natural sources of cooling to condense water from the air at a fraction of the cost of traditional machines. His team design, constructed, and tested this system and finished in the top 3 of 98 teams from around the world.
His other accomplishments include being a Fulbright U.S. Student Program Research Fellow to South Korea. Collaborating internationally to develop a new electric plasma jet medical device for the treatment of skin cancer. He studied the jet experimentally to quantify the fluid flow and heat properties and learned the methods for growing and analyzing cells to study the interactions of the plasma jet with Melanoma and healthy skin cells.
Dr. Taylor is also an active volunteer for engineering student programs around the world with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is the past Chair of the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge, member of the Student and Early Career Sector Council, past member of the Nominating Committee, and Chair of the Student Programming Committee. He is also active in his local section as a member of the leadership team for the Boston ASME Section. For his volunteering and career accomplishments he has been award the ASME Old Guard Early Career award in 2016.
Dr. Taylor is currently working in the Boston area designing electromechanical consumer products. He controls mechanical components using software that he writes to characterize the components and the system experimentally to build the best system possible within the constraints.