SPEAKER BIOS
Kristen Aguiar is PCB Designer I at Newgrange Design. She has been designing circuit boards for over 15 years, including a wide variety of applications such as high power, high density, and high-speed designs. She has also worked for Altium as a certified trainer and content developer. She has an IPC CID+ certification.
Albert Block brings over four decades’ experience in the SMTA/PCB industry to his current role as PCB manufacturing strategist at DirectPCB. Previously, Block was responsible for evaluating new designs for product reliability and ensuring their robustness for NI’s manufacturing. As a member of NI’s PCB commodity team, he performed new supplier audits. Before joining NI, he was DfM engineering manager at Solectron’s NPI group, and was responsible for various chemical and test labs at Raytheon/Texas Instruments Defense systems.
Karen Burnham has worked in and around the aerospace, defense, automotive, and broader consulting world since 1996. She has a bachelor’s in physics, a master’s in electrical engineering, and a talent for translating EMC to English. She has managed requirements and test planning for NASA and the Dream Chaser spaceship and others. She has done troubleshooting on electric vehicles for Ford Motor Co. and others. She sits on multiple international standards committees, landing her in her current role of VP of Standards for the IEEE EMC Society. Burnham founded EMC United, Inc. in 2024 to focus on helping companies and hardware designers solve EMC problems, ideally before they start. She believes that, far from being black magic, EMC can be understandable (and even fun!), and she hopes to spread that passion more widely.
Gerry Callahan is a senior embedded systems engineer, with over 30 years of experience designing, programming, and testing electrical circuits and systems. He has a BSEE from the University of Maryland, and has worked in a variety of defense and commercial settings for small and large companies. He also enjoys mountain hiking and zymurgy.
Stephen Chavez is a principal printed circuit engineer with three decades of experience. He is acknowledged throughout the industry as a global subject matter expert (SME) in PCB design. His continued career evolution has elevated him to industry though leadership and as an industry influencer regarding printed circuit engineering. He is currently principal technical product marketing manager with Siemens. He’s an editor/contributor to industry publications and host of the Printed Circuit Podcast. He is a coauthor and instructor of the PCEA Training curriculum and certification (PCEA Certified Printed Circuit Designer, or CPCD).
Tomas Chester, P.Eng., CPCD-I, has over a decade of experience designing hardware products through all phases of its lifecycle. He has managed a variety of multifaceted, interdisciplinary projects, from simple interconnect interfaces to complex microprocessors. His creative designs utilize cutting-edge manufacturing techniques, while adhering to strict industry standards and specifications. Tomas has extensive experience designing standalone single-sided circuit boards, as well as multi-board assemblies with mechanical integration. With an engineering systems and computing degree from The University of Guelph, he is now sharing his knowledge by instructing Altium and PCB engineering design courses.
Terrie Duffy is a principal electrical engineer-AI automation, at Dell Technologies. She is also an adjunct professor at Austin Community College. She previously was a senior printed circuit board designer at McCauley Design Group for six years. She has a bachelor’s in computer science from Texas A&M.
Ray Fugitt is technical sales manager at Siemens Downstream Technologies. He has 40 years’ experience in printed circuit boards, 11 at Hadco in product and CAM engineering, and more than 20 supporting and providing training for the BluePrint PCB and CAM350 products.
Rick Hartley retired from L-3 Avionics, is the principal of RHartley Enterprises, through which he consults and teaches internationally. Hartley’s focus is on correct design of circuits and PCBs to prevent and/or resolve EMI, noise and signal integrity problems. He has consulted with major corporations in the US and 14 other countries. His career has focused on telecommunications, computers and aircraft avionics, as well as medical, appliance and automotive circuits. Hartley has taught seminars at numerous conferences, including PCB East and PCB West, IEEE EMC Symposium, AltiumLive, Freescale Technology Forum, IPC Apex/Expo and others. He is on the board of directors of the Circuit Engineering Association, is a past member of the editorial review board of Printed Circuit Design magazine and has written numerous technical papers and articles on methods to control noise, EMI and signal integrity.
Geoffrey Hazelett is business development executive at FreedomCAD. He has over 10 years of experience in software quality engineering and sales of signal integrity software, and also held marketing development for a PCB distribution company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from . He chairs the PCEA Certification Task Group.
Troy Hopkins, CPCD-I is a seasoned hardware designer with over 16 years of experience in the electronics industry. His expertise encompasses all aspects of the hardware design process, from initial concept through to manufacturing, ensuring that each product meets stringent quality and performance requirements, across many different industries and applications. Beyond teaching internationally, he also consults with major corporations and startups in the design and development of electronic hardware and printed circuit boards.
Keith Kowal has been vice president of engineering at two startup companies including AT/Comm, a predecessor to EZPass, and at Ergo Computing, which developed a portable desktop PC as well as the first docking station. He was also part of a startup developing videoconferencing equipment, now called Polycom. He has experience at several medical companies, including Philips. He has published technical articles in Printed Circuit Design and has been a presenter at many technical conferences. Currently, Keith works for Applied Materials. He has taught at MIT as an electronic technical instructor, and holds a master’s from Boston University in computer engineering.
Matthew Leary has been a PCB designer for more than 25 years. He also is the founder and president of Newgrange Design, a 45-person PCB design service bureau based in Boston serving companies throughout the US. He is a director of the PCEA.
Charlene McCauley has over 44 years’ experience as a PCB and mechanical designer, 22 as the founder and manager of two design service bureaus. For the past 14 years, she has led McCauley Design Group, where she has served 50+ customers in the server, semiconductor, space, military aircraft, radar, satellite, medical, simulator, oil field industries. She has eight years’ experience as an adjunct professor at Austin Community College teaching PCB design, electrical/electronic design, and technical drafting. She was employed at Dell for nine years as a senior PCB designer for the rack, tower, blade server, and storage systems, and now provides design services for Dell’s Precision laptop and server systems. She also provides Allegro/OrCAD training for her customers’ engineering departments.
Vitaly Michalchuk has over 20 years in electronics manufacturing. He joined Screaming Circuits in 2005 and now leads Business Growth & Development, focusing on building customer relationships and finding new ways to meet their needs. Passionate about improvement and customer success, Michalchuk helps keep Screaming Circuits at the forefront of quickturn and prototype assembly.
Ryan Miller began his PCB career in 2012 at a US factory where he gained experience in manufacturing, DfM analysis, and stackup and impedance design. He graduated from DeVry University with a bachelor’s in electronics engineering technology. In 2022, Miller joined NCAB Group as a field application engineer. He now has a primary focus on high-reliability PCBs for medical applications and preventing errors at the design stage.
Eric Penchansky, CPCD is an engineer, tinkerer, and self-proclaimed maker with an insatiable appetite for all things related to electronics design with a particular fondness for applications involving mechatronic/robotic/automated systems. It’s through these pursuits that he discovered a particular affinity for printed circuit board design and a strong desire to continue developing his skills through coursework, training, workshops, conferences, and any opportunity he can find to lay out boards at work. Penchansky is an active member of PCEA.
Ethan Pierce, CPCD is founder of Dodec Labs. An electrical engineer by trade, he has spent his career building, consumer, medical and defense connected products at leading companies such as Apple, to leading IoT companies, such as Blues Wireless and Particle. His specialty is maintaining holistic design intent from concept to mass production, producing high-performance hardware designs.
Stephan Schmidt serves as North American technical sales consultant for 3D MID circuits at Harting, a Switzerland-based company. Schmidt held numerous positions in his over 30 years’ at LPKF Laser & Electronics, including roles in technical support, customer applications, international sales, and North American president. His expertise spans engineering and leadership in laser-based solutions for electronics manufacturing. He has a degree in electrical engineering from the College of Technology Hannover, Germany.
Hemant Shah is chairman of the IPC-2581 Consortium, a consortium of over 120 companies dedicated to getting IPC-2581 adopted. His experience includes group director of product management for Allegro PCB products at Cadence, and vice president of product marketing at Anew Design Automation. Shah led the effort to create an industry-wide consortium of design and supply chain companies to adopt IPC-2581 as the standard for transferring PCB design data to manufacturing. Prior to managing the PCB and FPGA products, he managed the Allegro signal and power integrity products for PCB & IC packaging. Shah also led an industry wide effort to get a new algorithmic modeling standard (IBIS-AMI) approved and adopted.
Prior to joining Cadence, Shah worked at Xynetix Inc. and before that at Intergraph Corporation. He is passionate about developing, marketing leading edge software products for PCB design.
Matt Stevenson has been in the PCB industry since 1995 and joined Sunstone Circuits in 2006, advancing from quality manager to VP of sales, marketing and operations and general manager. With deep expertise spanning sales, production, and quality control, he brings a unique perspective to driving growth, customer experience, and brand leadership. Stevenson holds dual bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering from Colorado State University and an MBA from Portland State University.
Adam Taylor is a world-recognized expert in design and development of embedded systems and FPGAs. Throughout his career, he has used FPGAs to implement a wide variety of solutions from RADAR to safety critical control systems (SIL4) and satellite systems. He also had interesting stops in image processing and cryptography along the way.
Taylor is a Chartered Engineer, Senior Member of the IEEE, Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Arm Innovator, and Edge Impulse Ambassador. He is owner of the engineering and consultancy company Adiuvo Engineering and Training, which develops embedded solutions for high reliability, mission critical and space applications. Current projects include ESA Plato, and Lunar Gateway along with several other clients across the world.
FPGAs are Taylor’s first love, and he has authored numerous articles and papers on electronics design and FPGA design including over 500 blogs, amassing over 30 million views.
Mike Tucker is director of field applications engineering at SCC Shennan China Circuits. He has over 29 years technical experience in PCB manufacturing (rigid/rigid-flex/HDI/flex/MPCB). He has developed manufacturing processes and methodologies to drive technology curves, capabilities, and competitiveness. He is an expert in front-end engineering, CAM tools, automation of CAM tooling, integration of CAM tools with MRP/ERP/shop-floor operations and software development of shop-floor software operations. He works closely with engineers, designers, program managers and OEMs to build mission critical parts from concept to prototype to production.
Syed Ubaid Ali Warsi is a seasoned IPC CID senior PCB designer with 20 years of diverse experience, His journey encompasses guiding boards from the initial design phase through prototyping, board bring-up, EMC compliance, and finally to full-scale production. Specializing in high-speed PCB design and EMC compliance, he navigates cutting-edge technologies like Intel’s Agilex and Stratix series, PCIe Gen3/4, 56Gbps PAM4, and 28Gbps NRZ interfaces. A notable HDI technology expert, Syed contributes to breakthroughs in 0.2mm CSP multi-lamination breakout boards. Beyond his individual accomplishments, his mentorship has shaped the next generation of PCB designers. Through his mentorship, several professionals are now thriving at renowned companies like Intel, Xilinx, R&D Altanova, Hitek Systems, among others. As owner of Wavetroniks, his commitment to excellence and innovation drives success in the dynamic field of PCB and hardware design, serving clients across North America.
Lauren Waslick is PCB design director at Newgrange Design. She is also a senior PCB designer with over 13 years of experience. She runs the PCB design department, which includes over 25 designers, and oversees the training program. Working at a service bureau for 13 years has allowed her to gain extensive design experience across many industries including medical, consumer products, defense, aerospace, alternative energy, robotics and more. She specializes in flex design, as well as HDI and high-speed, and has worked on hundreds of circuit board designs in her career. In 2019, she received her MBA from Babson College.
Susy Webb is a senior PCB design engineer with over 45 years of experience. Her career includes experience in coastal and oceanographic oil exploration and monitoring equipment, point-to-point microwave network systems, and CPCI and ATX computer motherboards. Webb is a regular speaker at PCB Conferences, IPC events, international design conferences, and has consulted to individual companies and groups for the last 20 years. Her presentations discuss practical implementation of complex engineering concepts into board layout, and methods to improve the overall design and flow of printed circuit boards. She is CID certified, a former writer/columnist for Printed Circuit Design and Fab magazine, a chapter writer for Clyde Coombs Printed Circuits Handbook, an authors of the PCEA Training Printed Circuit Engineering Professional handbook and curriculum, and a former judge for the annual TLA competition. Webb is also an active member of the PCEA Executive Board and Education committees.