Ruth Castillo Email & Phone Number

Haverhill, Nh, Us

Waltham, Ma

Teach four courses: Principles of Adaptive Design, Engineering Foundations, Design: Human Factors in Product Development, and Fabrication to students in grades 10-12.Develop and restructure curriculum of all courses, with a focus on approaching projects from a lean, iterative perspective, and teaching students to fail fast and often, fomenting skills in risk-taking and resourcefulness. Create user-centered projects teaching students to work with deadlines and manage expectations when designing products for external clients.Optimize internal department processes by creating more efficient communication infrastructure and supervise the school’s machine shop and prototyping lab to develop educational training for all faculty and students.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Developed digital strategy to bring in-person programming to worldwide staff online in design, engineering and making, encouraging staff to learn new skills, improve creativity and increase innovation within the company.In collaboration with Microsoft international sites, organized, created and delivered programs for employees on a variety of topics including making, design thinking and IoT during the company-wide 2020 Hackathon, encouraging employees to engage in collaboration with other employees outside of their teams on projects that harness data such as social justice and innovation within Microsoft.

Somerville, Massachusetts

Led a project in a fast-paced environment to characterize the true specifications of the company’s premiere product, a novel water filtration membrane, which allowed the company to develop a new internal standard for quality and develop more targeted marketing strategies.Explored and tested novel methods of membrane manufacturing techniques with external vendors, allowing the company to determine which method yielded maximum membrane viability.Mentored junior team members in design of experiments and the scientific method in an industrial setting, enabling them to take greater ownership of their work and increase their independence, leading to higher efficiency and throughput of projects within the company.

Medford, Massachusetts, United States

Planned 14 weeks of seminars for 26 STEM students with speakers and dynamic, hands-on workshops that prepared first-generation college students for a University STEM career oriented curriculum.Redefined students’ perspectives of science and engineering by facilitating research opportunities with on-campus research labs and taught skills such as presentation etiquette, methods and methods for data analytics.

Medford, Ma

Analyzed the mechanical and chemical properties of regenerated silk fibers with the purpose of creating a library of “smart” fibers and silk/marine polymer composites to explore their use as underwater adhesives, textiles and electronics.Characterized the effects of pH, material concentration and polymerization method on chemical and mechanical profiles of biomaterial composites to better understand material characteristics, fine tuned manufacturing processes and applied controls to develop composites with desired chemical and mechanical profiles.

As Team Lead in a project sponsored by the Adidas Future Engineering Team, my team created a new midsole prototype from novel materials, along with a mathematical simulation tool that predicted different materials’ heat transfer behaviour to an athlete’s foot. Our Prototype addressed Adidas’s concerns of overheating of their football cleat in high summer temperatures, and would mitigate an issue that affects millions of players around the world.In a product development course at Tufts University, my team developed a learning toy that allowed children ages 5-12 to develop creative problem solving and spatial visualization skills by creating a variety of structures modeled after Rube Goldberg devices.In a user-centered project at Tufts University, my team worked with a child with ectodactyly to develop an assisted hand device that allowed them to more comfortably use their hand and seamlessly interact with their environment, specifically in holding boxes and a hockey stick, which were priorities for them.Working on a project for IDEXX Laboratories, my team developed an automated image analysis tool using Image J that allowed IDEXX to use the intensity of color in their test results to more accurately differentiate between real and false positives for a variety of canine diseases, leading to more accurate diagnosis and treatment avenues.

Bedford, Ma

Performed feasibility research for a novel sensor to be implemented into GEM® blood-gas analyzing instruments that detects compromised blood samples, which can affect patient diagnosis and treatment course. Used electrochemistry-based approaches in conjunction with polymer and enzyme stabilization techniques to optimize bench scale experiments to a manufacturable process in a sensor card.

Laboratory Of Surface Science And Technology

Created a research proposal and led the research development of investigating biofilm formation on medical implants with a zebrafish in vivo model with the goal of developing biomaterials that prevent biofilm formation on medical implants, a solution that could prevent infection and unnecessary surgery on those in need of orthopedic implants.

Bedford, Ma

Performed environmental testing for a new immunoassay, point-of-care diagnostic device to establish specifications of operating parameters of the immunoassay device before its release to the marketIn collaboration with a team of scientists and engineers, learned about the systems engineering process: instrument design, hardware integration, development, verification and validation

Rising Leaders Fellow

Busines Analytics Nanodegree, Data Processing

Master Of Science - Ms, Biomedical/Medical Engineering

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Bioengineering

Activities and Societies: Engineers Without Borders (EWB) -Membership Coordinator, Design Team, Translator, Logistics Assistant; Society.