☾Salah ·

    About

    ✦About me
    Vien with friends

    An aspiring student from Georgia Tech willing to improve his endeavors in all realms. Be it the physical realm of combat competing against monstrous athletes or learning the intricate world of technology and engineering, the endless amount of potential is always unraveling till the end.

    My work blends embedded systems, machine learning, and software engineering with a focus on real-world impact.

    ◆What I do

    As the founder of Strike, I developed a smart boxing tracker that captures real-time performance data using embedded sensors and Bluetooth connectivity, enabling safer and more informed training for athletes.

    Through my research with the Structured Information for Precision Neuroengineering Lab, I contributed to human-in-the-loop AI systems by designing web-based interfaces that streamline data collection for sentiment analysis and natural language tasks. This experience sharpened my understanding of human-centered machine learning and scalable experiment design.

    At the Najam Institute, I also apply my technical skills to community development, serving as a Content Director and Technical Editor focused on Islamic education and outreach.

    Every experience has reinforced my belief that technology is most powerful when it improves lives — and that's the mission that drives me.

    Experience

    ◈Education
    Georgia Tech's Tech Tower

    Georgia Institute of Technology

    August 2023 – Fall 2026 (expected) · Atlanta, GA

    Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

    Concentration: Computer Hardware and Software Systems

    Coursework: Advanced VLSI, Advanced Computer Architecture, Embedded Systems Design, Data Structures and Algorithms, Digital Design Lab, Object-Oriented Programming, Cloud Computing

    ▤Skills
    Programming
    Java, Python, C, C++, JavaScript, MIPS, RISC-V, Verilog, VHDL, React.js, GitHub, x86
    Tools & software
    Linux, Cadence Virtuoso, Amazon AWS, VS Code, Do-More Designer
    Hardware
    Raspberry Pi, ARM mbed microcontroller, FPGAs, oscilloscope, logic analyzer, ESP32, UART, SPI, I2C, PLC
    ◆MVE Biological Solutions
    MVE Biological Solutions

    Engineering Intern

    May 2026 – August 2026 · Ball Ground, GA

    • Extended and contributed to a Python-based embedded firmware test framework for medical freezer controllers, writing new USB JSON command test cases and implementing verification logic across 70+ test functions – covering temperature setpoint validation, fill state transitions, alarm thresholds, lid behaviors, and RTC configuration – cross-validating responses across both USB and ASCII serial interfaces to confirm firmware correctness.
    • Authored formal verification and validation test reports for multiple protocols (alarms, firmware releases, liquid-level sensing), used directly in release review and quality documentation workflows in Greenlight Guru.
    • Developed and integrated a Python CLI tool that automatically ingests, parses, and consolidates 7 distinct unit test output and coverage reports from nightly cloud build artifacts, eliminating 8-10 hours of manual logging review per protocol and deploying end-to-end within a multi-job GitHub Action CI/CD pipeline with automated artifact extraction and report generation.
    • Configured SSH environments on embedded Linux controller boards and operated a CM4 ReTerminal (Raspberry Pi-based) as a portable test platform to execute shell scripts, extract structured .csv sensor logs, and interface directly with device firmware – supporting a BME280 temperature offset characterization study that measured sensor variance across different laboratory environments and controller configurations.
    • Programmed a PLC program in Do-More Designer for a BRX controller, implementing analog input reads from positional sensors, writing custom filtering functions to stabilize signal output, and configuring motor control logic to drive a rotating freezer fixture through bidirectional rotation sequences across hundreds of automated test cycles – simulating 4-5 years of real-world customer use in an accelerated mechanical wear validation experiment.
    ◆Bio-MIBLab
    Bio-MIBLab

    Haptic Device Research Assistant — Bio-Medical Informatics and Bioimaging Lab

    August 2025 – June 2026 · Atlanta, GA

    • Prototyped an XR haptic pipeline using the Unity OpenXR plugin and ESP32 microcontroller that translates bone collision events into servo-based motion constraints.
    • Presented research at the IEEE Bio-Health Informatics Conference and received the NextGen Scholar award recognized by Google, National Science Foundation, and IEEE EMBS.
    • Surveyed 30+ publications on haptic rendering, virtual coupling, and texture perception to evaluate haptic rendering for surgical tasks.
    ◆Hyundai · Capstone
    Hyundai

    Software / AI System Engineer — Hyundai Motor Group Capstone

    January 2026 – May 2026

    • Engineered a smart manufacturing dashboard that fused edge computer vision outputs with real-time operational alerts to detect AMR congestion, improve mission visibility, and support plant-floor decision making.
    • Benchmarked motion-based, color-based, and deep learning pipelines for industrial AMR monitoring, selecting lightweight VLM models for balanced detection quality, explainability, and deployability on constrained edge hardware.
    • Designed the software workflow for a distributed edge vision system in which Raspberry Pi camera nodes transmitted traffic and pallet-monitoring video streams to an NVIDIA Jetson for localized inference and dashboard integration.
    ◆Strike
    CREATE-X

    Embedded Systems Engineer, Co-Founder — Strike

    May 2024 – January 2025 · Atlanta, GA

    • Developed a wearable punch-tracking device using an ESP32 microcontroller, an I2C IMU for motion tracking, and an analog pressure transducer for impact sensing, capturing high-dynamic punch profiles during live strikes.
    • Implemented embedded C/C++ firmware for real-time data acquisition, sensor filtering, and Wi-Fi/BLE streaming, achieving ~30-40 ms end-to-end latency to a client visualization dashboard for power and speed analysis.
    ◆SiP Lab
    SiP Lab

    AI/ML Research Assistant — Structured Information for Precision Neuroengineering Lab

    January 2025 – July 2025 · Atlanta, GA

    • Built a web-based experimental platform using Next.js and Docker, hosted on Amazon EC2 for scalable, remote user access.
    • Architected experiment workflows and participant pipelines via Qualtrics, enabling scalable data collection from over 100 users and improving data labeling efficiency.
    • Supported a human-in-the-loop Machine Learning research paper by validating that richer human interactions reduce training iterations by over 60% while maintaining model accuracy.
    ◆VIP
    Vertically Integrated Projects

    Vertically Integrated Project Researcher

    August 2024 – Present

    Refined and optimized hardware for delivery drones capable of picking up and delivering packages on campus. Led troubleshooting and repair of electrical components and circuits, improving the drone's performance, durability, modularity, and reliability. Additionally, contributed to the development of an improved drone carrier design to enhance delivery efficiency.

    ✦Leadership

    Philanthropy and Interfaith Committee — Georgia Tech Muslim Student Association

    2023 – Current

    • Raised money for charities through sales and other events, including helping to raise over $140,000 for the Human Development Fund in one week.
    • Directed gallery program operation for a 200+ attendee event using a systems engineering approach: designing the multi-room visitor flow layout, coordinating volunteer task allocation, presentation infrastructure and material logistics, and building structured workflows for resource planning, inventory control, deadline tracking, and continuous process improvement across the full event lifecycle, while supporting art decor development through 3D modeling, woodworking, and digital technology integration.

    Projects

    ◆This site
    The home page of this site: a pixel-art sunrise over Al-Aqsa with a clock, a Quran verse and prayer times

    vienjunaid.com & the RPi Dashboard

    This site shares its engine with a full-screen home screen I run on a Raspberry Pi. Everything on the canvas is a grid of text cells: a WebGL2 glyph-atlas renderer (with a Canvas 2D fallback) draws each cell's character, foreground and background color, and half-block characters turn every cell into two stacked pixels. The scenes are procedural pixel art, drawn by code and animated at 20 fps for about 0.2 ms of CPU per frame, and the home page follows the prayer times, calculated offline in the browser. The site is plain HTML, CSS and ES modules with no build step, and one script syncs the renderer, scenes and themes over from the dashboard.

    Dashboard source ▸
    ◆Telecontrol Glove

    Robotic Telecontrol Glove

    April 2025 · C++, ESP-32, Arduino, Servo, VR Integration

    • Built a sensor wearable glove for robotic hand teleoperation using an ESP32 microcontroller, acquiring 5 analog flexion channels from potentiometers linked by tension strings for finger-position tracking and robotic mirroring.
    • Wrote embedded C/C++ firmware to sample the flexion channels, applying calibration and encoding states via alphabetic serial protocols at ~250 Hz (4 ms).
    • Integrated tactile feedback by mapping five feedback buttons on the robotic hand to corresponding servos on the glove, simulating the sensation of physical contact.
    ◆Crescent Cloud

    Crescent Cloud AI Support Chatbot

    The project involves developing an AI chatbot that has progressed through several levels of complexity. Starting with a basic chatbot structure and input handling, the project evolved by integrating OpenAI's GPT-4 model for intelligent responses, deploying the web app on AWS EC2, and optimizing it using AWS Bedrock and RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) for knowledge-based responses. The final implementation leverages various AWS services, Next.js, and Pinecone for efficient data handling and vectorization, resulting in a sophisticated, scalable chatbot capable of intelligent, context-aware interactions.

    Video demo ▸
    ◆RISC-V

    RISC-V Processor Design

    Designed and implemented a five-stage pipelined RISC-V processor in SystemVerilog, supporting instruction-level parallelism and modular microarchitecture. Boosted execution throughput by 6.44× through hazard mitigation techniques such as pipeline stalling, data forwarding, and branch prediction. Validated design correctness using ModelSim, performing detailed waveform analysis, timing verification, and register tracking to ensure accurate instruction flow and reliable processor performance.

    ◆Servo FPGA

    Servo FPGA Peripheral Design

    Designed and implemented an FPGA-based servo controller using VHDL and Assembly to drive five independent servos concurrently, increasing hardware scalability by 400%. Developed precise timing logic and documented system architecture, including signal constraints and interfacing methodology. Addressed challenges in concurrent control and synchronization, ensuring reliable pulse-width modulation and consistent servo behavior under real-time conditions.

    ◆Embedded Arcade

    Real-Time Embedded Arcade Platform

    June 2024 · C, Arduino, Embedded Systems

    • Engineered a real-time space shooter game on a custom embedded platform, integrating event-driven input handling and dynamic UI elements for enhanced user interactivity.
    • Implemented SoC peripheral interfaces including SPI (uLCD display, SD card), GPIO (pushbuttons, switches), and PWM/audio output.
    • Optimized the core game loop for performance, reducing execution latency and achieving a 50% improvement in load times through memory-efficient data structures and loop unrolling.
    Video demo ▸
    ◆Cloud Photo Gallery

    Cloud Photo Gallery Platform

    March 2026 · AWS EC2, Lambda, API Gateway, S3, DynamoDB, RDS, MySQL, Cognito

    • Built a full-stack cloud photo gallery platform across serverless and virtual machine-based AWS deployments, enabling user signup, login, album creation, photo upload, search, and gallery management through integrated frontend, backend, and database workflows.
    • Engineered both SQL and NoSQL application architectures using RDS/MySQL and DynamoDB, implementing hashed user authentication, ownership-based access control, and synchronized storage of images, tags, and metadata.
    • Deployed and tested the system on AWS using EC2, Lambda, API Gateway, S3, and Cognito, strengthening experience in cloud application design, database integration, and end-to-end web platform development.
    ◆Pantry Tracker

    Smart Inventory Pantry Tracker

    Developed a responsive web application to track pantry inventory in real time, enabling users to monitor food supplies, log usage, and receive stock alerts. Implemented Firebase for backend data storage, real-time database sync, and user authentication, ensuring seamless access across devices. Deployed the full-stack app using GitHub Pages, integrating version control, CI/CD, and collaborative development workflows. Designed intuitive UI components to enhance usability and encourage sustainable household management.

    ◆DNA Search

    Assembly DNA Binary Search

    Developed a comprehensive MIPS project that performs a binary search on DNA sequences, focusing on efficiency by reducing the dynamic instruction count by 50% and minimizing the static instruction count by 41%.

    Resume

    ▤Resume
    ◈Links
    ✉Contact

    © Vien Tran · vtran82@gmail.com

    Quran text: Tanzil (Uthmani), unmodified. Translation: Sahih International. Fonts: JetBrains Mono and Amiri Quran (SIL Open Font License).

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