Tom Kerr Email & Phone Number

MA, 01824, US

• ZOLL is a global provider of medical devices, software and related services to diagnose and treat patients suffering from serious cardiopulmonary and respiratory conditions.
• Guided a software team developing safety-critical software for the first wearable cardiac defibrillator that achieved approval under the newest FDA premarket and cybersecurity regulations.
• Introduced a machine-learning based noise discriminator that produced a 56% relative reduction in arrhythmia alarms
• Led a team developing an algorithm simulation test bed that achieved an average 50x speedup of data collection and test runs
• Designed and implemented IoT data protocols between fielded devices and cloud-based applications for improved diagnostics and reporting
• Designed and implemented upgrades to a legacy Linux data transfer system that reduced downtime by 90%

• Providing occasional firmware and embedded systems development and consultation services to small and early-stage companies via word-of-mouth referral. Example projects include:
• Wireless cloud data transfer interface board for a legacy pediatric monitoring device
• Extreme low-power energy harvesting current monitor for industrial applications
• Wireless interface and motor control firmware for consumer robotic applications
• LED lighting controller with built-in web server

• Startup company providing wireless remote monitoring devices and web-based services primarily to the senior care market.
• Led a small engineering team responsible for wireless sensor hardware and software for senior care applications. Starting with a proof-of-concept, we successfully brought a first generation system to full production.
• Developed a wireless mesh networking protocol that facilitates self organization into an optimal tree network without the need to retain any routing information. This results in easy field deployment for our customers.
• Improved device reliability through hardware and software quality improvements, algorithm improvements, and automated testing. Devices are less expensive to manufacture, and customer support issues have decreased.
• Developed new sensor types that facilitated entry into new market segments. This required development of adaptive DSP algorithms for lightweight microprocessors such as de-noising, statistical and stochastic.
• Developed low-power wireless sensor nodes that achieve battery life in excess of one year.

Pittsburgh, PA, US

• Small medical device company providing RFID-based operating room equipment that prevents medical errors and improves efficiency. The company's devices received recognition and awards from many sources including the.
• Created a 5 person group of software developers and engineering technicians responsible for embedded firmware and PC support tools for RFID-based medical devices. Responsible for software development, system.
• Led software development team from concept to on-time and on-budget product launch of next-generation medical device.
• Championed agile development processes and incorporated them into the quality system, resulting in shorter development cycles and higher reliability code.
• Performed Chief Software Architect role for next-generation embedded Linux medical device, providing leadership to other engineers.
• Developed Qt foundation classes based on design patterns, resulting in reusable modules with thousands of unit test cases.

• Vocollect is the leading provider of innovative mobile voice technology solutions for warehousing and industrial markets. I joined the company as a startup and held positions of increasing responsibility as it grew to.
• Created and staffed department responsible for identification and commercialization of key technologies for new products and markets, with execution directed at innovation in support of business strategy. Performed.
• Key hardware R&D efforts include advanced dielectrics, embedded antennas, energy harvesting, low power RF, weak signal wireless, RFID and RTLS.
• Key software R&D efforts include embedded server systems, optimized wireless voice communication and rapid prototyping of voice-assisted systems for new markets.
• Key speech recognition R&D efforts include advanced acoustic modeling algorithms, automatic model adaptation and non-linear optimization.
• I also managed our global intellectual property program and held corporate authority for export control and CE Mark conformity matters.

• Responsible for engineering development activities associated with all core hardware and software products from concept through end-of-life. Activities included project planning and execution, resource allocation.
• Built a management team that improved our core competency in several areas including embedded software, enterprise applications, mechanical engineering, and project management
• Key contributor to development of Stage Gate based new product development process
• Instituted a Software Engineering Process Group to improve internal development processes
• Instituted a System Architecture Working Group to ensure the evolution of an integrated hardware and software architecture across the core product line
• Project manager for Vocollect's first OEM software product

• Organized and staffed multi-disciplinary department responsible for life-cycle management of all hardware and software products from market introduction through end-of-life.
• Developed process and tools for selecting, prioritizing, scheduling, and tracking bug fixes and new features
• Managed development of process for software reuse and synchronization between two product lines
• Developed database and GUI application core competency that allowed company to pursue a more vertically-integrated business strategy
• Provided direct customer support for technical issues

• Biocontrol Technology Inc. is a small company that developed innovative medical devices for the treatment and prevention of disease.Responsible for all software engineering activities for the company. This included.
• Directed and coordinated activities of multi-disciplinary engineering personnel
• Set technical, schedule, and cost objectives for development projects
• Key contributor to overall system requirements, specifications, and architecture
• Called upon to understand regulatory agency policy, consensus standards, and best practices, and translate to sound development processes
• Developed company-wide software processes resulting in successful ISO-9001 certification

• Staffed and led a multi-disciplinary team responsible for developing embedded systems for portable medical devices. We were responsible for microprocessor, DSP and FPGA hardware and all embedded firmware.
• Staffed and led embedded system development effort of a non-invasive glucose monitor that incorporates real-time signal processing and multivariate analysis algorithms
• Staffed and led embedded system development effort of hyperthermia-based cancer and AIDS treatment system that incorporated real-time process control of life sustaining equipment

Melbourne, Florida, US

Harris Corporation is a Fortune 500 communications and information technology company serving government and commercial markets in more than 125 countries. I joined the company as a new grad and held positions of increasing responsiblity in its government systems division. During that time I held various security clearances including DoD TS and SCI.Led.

Melbourne, Florida, US

Primary architect of novel distributed processor system used for automated image mosaic generation from multiple sensors. Key contributor to a number of technical proposals and white papers for custom image processing systems. Developed and taught an overview course in remote sensing.

Melbourne, Florida, US

Developed Unix/C++ image processing applications. Key contributor to object-oriented foundation classes for numerical analysis and statistical processing. Developed algorithms for choosing images for mosaics based on graph theory and linear optimization.

Melbourne, Florida, US

Hardware developer for custom signal processing group. Board-level designs included store-and-forward systems that included dynamic memory management and real-time error correction, mux/demux systems for communications signals, and statistical processing and event detection in streaming data. Developed several device drivers for computer control of this.

Ms, Electrical Engineering

Bs, Electrical Engineering