Kristen Aguiar, CID+ has been designing circuit boards for 20 years, including a wide variety of applications such as high-power, high-density and high-speed designs. She has spent the past 10 years specializing in training designers, splitting her time between design work, mentoring new designers and an instructor for Altium training. She currently works for Newgrange Design as a PCB designer and trainer.

Daniel Beeker is president and CTO of System Solution Specialists LLC, providing consulting, training and design guidance in EMC, signal integrity and field-based PCB engineering. With over 50 years of experience, he specializes in low-layer-count, high-reliability designs driven by electromagnetic field behavior. He has completed 250+ PCB design reviews, contributed to 25+ IC package designs and trained more than 6,000 engineers worldwide. His work helps teams achieve first-pass EMC success through physics-based design.

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, the Dream Chaser spaceship and other programs. She has performed troubleshooting on electric vehicles for Ford Motor Company and others. She initiated innovative SBIRs and STTRs through government centers and worked on classified programs. She has consulted on projects across a wide range of industries and sits on multiple international standards committees, which have landed her in her current role as vice president of standards for the IEEE EMC Society. Burnham founded EMC United in 2024 to help companies and hardware designers solve EMC problems, ideally before they start.

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.

Tyler Carvalho is a PCB designer with more than a decade of experience. He has spent his career at VoltServer Inc., contributing to the development of Class 4 power technology. His work centers on designing efficient, reliable printed circuit boards. His approach is grounded in real-world application, where practical constraints shape every design decision.

Stephen V. Chavez, CPCD-I, is a principal printed circuit engineer with over three decades of experience. He is acknowledged globally as an industry subject matter expert (SME) in PCB design. His continued career evolution has elevated him to industry thought leadership and as an industry influencer regarding printed circuit engineering. He is an author, podcast host and is currently a principal technical product marketing manager with Siemens. He is one of the coauthors and instructors of the PCEA Training curriculum and Certified Printed Circuit Designer (CPCD) certification. He continues to pave the way for the evolution of the printed circuit engineering professional within the industry. His focus is on continuous improvement for the PCB design profession by serving as chairman of PCEA.

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.

Keven Coates’ career spans 33 years of embedded processor digital/analog systems, high-speed PCB layout/signal integrity, very low noise circuits, high power circuits, thermal management, battery safety, battery management and battery interface circuits for consumer, industrial, automotive, and space designs. He’s currently a senior electrical engineer at Novium Designs, working on designs for the next International Space Station. He holds a bachelor’s in engineering from Texas A&M University.

Chuck Corley is one of the industry’s foremost high-speed digital design and signal integrity experts. He was nicknamed “MacGyver” for his ability to solve complex technical problems when others had failed. Corley helped design many of the industry’s leading products that pushed up to the “bleeding edge” of the highest clock speeds and complexity. His designs include core Internet networking and telecom transport hardware, WIFI technology, cellular 2G/3G/4G/5G technology, phased array radar, automotive radar, satellite communications, microwave instrumentation, and more. In addition to design work, over the past 40 years Corley has taught engineering classes at universities and private companies to help new and experienced engineers reach the cutting edge of high-speed digital circuit design, signal integrity, PCB design, design for manufacturing and design for reliability.

Ed Dodd is vice president of government and defense at Cofactr and serves as vice chair of SAE’s Aviation Parts Management committee. He is applying 20 years of experience leading cross-functional teams to deliver innovative solutions in parts management and reliability, digital transformation and systems integration to the challenges of today’s complex supply chain.

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.

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.

David Kruidhof is technical sales manager for electronics at Comet Yxlon, responsible for technical sales support, business development, and application solutions. He has a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the University of California, San Diego and 14 years’ experience in electronics manufacturing.

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.

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.

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.

Zachariah Peterson has an extensive technical background in academia and industry. He currently provides research, design and marketing services to electronics companies. Prior to working in the PCB industry, he taught at Portland State University. His background in scientific research spans topics in nanoparticle lasers, electronic and optoelectronic semiconductor devices, environmental sensors, and stochastics. His work has been published in over a dozen peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and he has written hundreds of technical blogs on PCB design for a number of companies. He is a member of IEEE Photonics Society, IEEE Electronics Packaging Society, American Physical Society, and the Printed Circuit Engineering Association (PCEA). He previously served as a voting member on the INCITS Quantum Computing Technical Advisory Committee and he currently serves on the IEEE P3186 Working Group.

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.

Chrys Shea has over 35 years of experience in the electronics manufacturing sector, with a deep background in SMT (Surface Mount Technology) process engineering. She began her career in 1990 at Compaq Computer as a New Product Introduction (NPI) engineer, later holding roles as a process engineer at Texas Instruments, a senior process engineer at Siemens, and an applications engineering manager at Cookson Electronics. She also worked as an account executive at Speedline Technologies and a technical sales/marketing lead at Motorola.

Her work spans tin-lead wave soldering to advanced lead-free and low-temperature Wafer Level Packages, and she is recognized as an SMTA Member of Technical Distinction and a four-time winner of the SMTA International “Best of Conference” award.

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.

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.