mICHAeL lAPINSKI
75 Amherst St E14-548S | Cambridge MA 02139 | | 1-518-727-4181
profile
PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab with over 7 years experience in industrial research (GE Global Research, IBM TJ Watson). Posses a track record of superb technical innovation and leadership in fields ranging from wireless sensor networks to enterprise Service Oriented Architectures to quantum simulation and cloud/grid computing. An anti-disciplinarian comfortable outside of his areas of expertise who believes that anything can be accomplished; all you have to do is try it.
Education
PhD in Media Arts and Sciences Aug 2008 – May 2013 GPA to-date:5.0/5.0
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Advisor: Prof. Joe Paradiso, Responsive Environments Group
M.S. in Media Arts and Sciences Aug 2006 – Aug 2008 GPA: 4.9/5.0
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Advisor: Prof. Joe Paradiso, Responsive Environments Group
M.S. in Computer Science Aug 2000 – May 2002 GPA: 3.5/4.0
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Advisor: Prof. Michael Sobolewski
B.S. in Computer Science Aug 1997 – May 2000 GPA: 3.4/4.0
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
experience
MIT Media Lab (Cambridge, MA) August 2007 - Present
Research Assistant - Boston Red Sox Fellow
sportSemble – PhD Dissertation - Collaboration between MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Boston Red Sox. Designed and built the only full body, 15 degree of freedom, bi-range wireless inertial sensor network in existence that enables medical professionals to study forces and torques experienced by professional baseball players as they push the limits of the human body. sportSemble allows better understanding of player fatigue, differences in technique and helps identify potential injury mechanisms. Singlehandedly implemented the following system:
Hardware – designed sensor node – features include AVR32 microcontroller, analog and digital power, μSD card, USB, 3 axes of dual range inertial sensors (±200G and ±8G accelerometer, ±16,000 and ±500 degree/s gyroscope), 3-axis magnetometer and 802.15.4 radio. Sensors are a mix of analog and digital (I2C/SPI) interfaces, SD card utilizes parallel SDIO interface for speed. Layout of 6 layer board focused on minimizing size, end result was a node that is 1.7x1.9x0.32 inches. Debugged all communication protocols and implemented analog filters to eliminate noise from various onboard sources.
Wireless Protocol – implemented channel hopping TDMA protocol for synchronization (5ms granularity) and command and control of network. Robust enough to operate in 2.4GHz band and avoid 802.11x interference.
Node Firmware – coded firmware capable of sampling 15 sensor channels at 1000Hz while also persisting data to μSD and maintaining radio synchronization with 100% data reliability. Involved a complex scheme that leveraged DMA to manage the 2 SPI, 2 I2C and SDIO channels and used raw SD sector writes to meet timing requirements.
Mechanical Design – Nodes were designed to withstand 120G’s of force repeatedly while pitchers threw. A system of neoprene sleeves for each node was built in order to quickly and securely attach to the body.
Calibration – designed custom 3D printed brackets to calibrate each axis of accelerometer and gyroscope for every sensor. Designed and built custom calibration rig to perform calibration.
Data Gathering - Red Sox Spring Training - instrumented over 50 players and gathered data as they performed pitching and batting activity in their native environment.
Data Analysis – Designed and built analysis engine with GUI and database backend. Used to process, store sensor data and calculate several medically relevant metrics for medical researchers. Database stores biometric and anthropomorphic data on players along with raw sensor data, calibrated sensor data and aggregated results from the analysis of each individual player gesture (pitch or swing). Some metrics calculated are specific torques at a given joint for different pitch types, timing differences and efficiency of the kinetic chain for different pitchers/batters and inter/intra player statistics.
Tricorder - Handheld device that communicated with a Lab wide sensor network and displayed a map of the lab that could be used to examine activity (motion, electric usage, noise, etc) in the environment from anywhere in the building. Implemented RSSI based locationing algorithms and user interface.
GE Global Research Center (Niskayuna, NY) June 2000 – July 2006
Federated Intelligent Product EnviRonment [FIPER] – 4 year $21.5M NIST grant aimed at reducing design time and time-to-market by intelligently automating elements of the entire aircraft engine design process. Part of team of 4 that created a Java and Jini based proof of concept Service Based Architecture that is network centric, network neutral, self scaling and robust.
Computer Scientist - 2000 – 2002 - designed and implemented several core FIPER services including:
FIPER Notification Manager - MS Thesis - Intelligent mailbox system for services to report job execution status to clients ranging from stateless applets to standalone apps without requiring services to know anything about the source client. Messages for offline clients were persisted until the client was available.
FIPER Job and Task Editor – Model View Controller based app that allowed engineers to build complex mechanical engineering design workflows. Built such that a single codebase supported PDA’s, browsers and standalone apps.
FIPER Standalone Client – featureful “heavy” standalone client for Win32/Solaris/AIX platforms
FIPER Database Porting – redesigned and refactored all ORACLE specific database objects to be database independent. Created set of helper APIs that presented a simple unified interface to all FIPER datatypes for engineers building services.
FIPER Single Sign On – Dissected and adapted and integrated GE’s companywide SSO architecture with all FIPER authentication and authorization modules. All services were authenticated before submitting or executing jobs. Found several security holes in SSO and provided fixes that were implemented company wide, worldwide.
FIPER Chief Architect – 2002 – 2004 -
Single point of contact for FIPER partners (Parker Hannifin, BF Goodrich, Ohio Aerospace Institute, GE Aircraft Engines, Stanford and Engineous Software) regarding architecture, implementation and deployment of the environment at their respective sites.
·  managed and trained a global team of developers creating services and infrastructure
·  Advised commercialization partner on proper implementation of the FIPER vision in the commercial version of FIPER.
·  Represented technical side of FIPER to potential customers of commercialized FIPER technology.
·  FIPER Commercial B2B - created a Web Services based Business-to-Business architecture that allowed secure access to FIPER services & business objects located at different firewalled enterprises. Integrated several authentication and authorization schemes in order to meet IT standards.
Project Manager Cloud-Utility-Grid Computing – 2004 – Led team responsible for characterizing low (80% idle) data center utilization for GE Aircraft Engines. Specified and designed an intelligent provisioning infrastructure that tracked and predicted application needs, then provisioned server resources on-demand to meet them. Minimized rack space requirements while maintaining Quality of Service and responsiveness. Monitoring allowed for utility style billing for compute power used per department.
Computer Scientist - 2005 - 2006
Active Networking – 2005 - intelligent and extremely dynamic ad-hoc wireless sensor networks
Certificate Based Routing Security – designed and implemented certificate based routing algorithm for ad-hoc wireless networks. Next hop routing decisions were made based upon how far a certificate chain could be validated.
Intelligent Sensor Monitoring – developed a scheme for monitoring sensors in an ad-hoc network that intelligently shipped monitoring logic to the node best suited to monitor a detected threat.
DOE Wireless Sensors – 2005 - 2006 wireless sensor networks for monitoring industrial plant equipment.
Measurement Infrastructure – specified measurement infrastructure in firmware to analyze RF space and radio capabilities in multihop mesh network. Managed firmware developers to ensure spec was met. Built analytics engine and app to examine network structure, aggregate metrics and visualize topology. Used this infrastructure to evaluate several radio/amplifier options and other networks.
Quantum Computing – 2006 - studied and optimized the structure of and operations on sparse matrices used to simulate a quantum computer. Resulted in a simulator that allowed simulation of more Qubits than any other in existence. Execution time was reduced by a factor of 21.5.
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Summer 1997 & Summer 1998
Summer Student
·  Implemented a CORBA version of the Solutions Integration Prototype [SIPRO] – 3 tiered supply chain architecture. Allowed all 3 tiers to be platform independent and network enabled. Built Point of Sale Java GUI that allowed for querying of the supply chain status. Maintained and presented SIPRO demo to customers at IBM’s technology showcase lab.
Mentoring
·  Supervised Master's Diplom - Clemens Satzger - "Fusion of Six-Dimensional Sensor Data Using Physics Engines" - January 2010 - Technische Universität München
·  Supervised Senior Thesis – Kyle Adkins – “Extreme Pitching Biomechanics” – May 2010 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
·  Mentored various undergraduate research students in the Responsive Environments group while at MIT.
Activities, Awards and Recognitions
·  Invited Speaker Future of Health Technology Institute 17th Future of Health Technology Summit, Oct 1, 2012
·  Best Paper Award (of 30) from the International Society for Productivity Enhancement (ISPE) for “Managing Notifications in a Federated Service to Service Environment”
·  Motocross Racing – 2011 New England Sport Committee +30B Champion – 11 race series – 10 Podiums and 6 Wins
·  Snowboarding, Skateboarding, Yoga, Tennis
Non-technical Relevant skills
·  Welding, Turning parts on a lathe.
·  Excellent understanding of mechanical systems – teardown/rebuild engines, valvetrains, transmissions etc.
·  Extensive construction experience – Tile, hardwood, sheetrock, electrical, bricklaying. You name it, Ive probably done it.
Publications
PhD Dissertation, MIT Media Lab “Wearable Wireless Sensing for Sports and Medicine Continued” , (Forthcoming, May 2013)
-  Lapinski, M., Feldmeier, M. and Paradiso, J.A., “Wearable Wireless Sensing for Sports and Ubiquitous Interactivity” in 2011 IEEE SENSORS Conference, 2011.
-  Lapinski, M., Berkson, E., Gill, T., Reinold, M., and Paradiso, J.A., “A Distributed Wearable, Wireless Sensor System for Evaluating Professional Baseball Pitchers and Batters” in Proc. of the IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC 2009), Linz, Austria, Sept 2009, pp. 131-138
-  Master’s Thesis, MIT Media Lab, “A Wearable, Wireless Sensor System for Sports Medicine” September 2008
-  Lifton, J., Mittal, M., Lapinski, M., and Paradiso, J.A., “Tricorder: A Mobile Sensor Network Browser”, in Proc of the ACM CHI 2007 conference, Mobile Spatial Interaction Wkshp, San Jose, CA, April 2007.
-  Michael Lapinski and Robert Mattheyses , “Quantum Simulation Performance Enhancements” GE Global Research Internal Reports, December Issue, 2005
-  L. Mullin, R.M. Mattheyses, M. Lapinski, "Improving Quantum Simulation Through Conformal Computing" in Workshop Proceedings of Conformal Computing 2005, CC05, October 2005, Albany, NY
-  Sexton, D., Lapinski, M., Mahony, M., Werb, J., “Radio Channel Quality in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks” in Proceedings of ISA/IEEE Instrumentation Measurement Society Sensors in Industry Conf 2005 SIcon/05, February 2005, Houston, Texas
-  M. Lapinski, “A Real-Time Measurement Infrastructure For Visualization And Statistical Analysis of Wireless Mesh Network Performance” GE Global Research Internal Reports, February Issue, 2005
-  Michael Lapinski and Mark Gilder “A Utility Computing Architecture for Achieving a "Pay-as-you-Compute" Service Model” GE Global Research Internal Reports, November Issue, 2004
-  Lapinski, M., “Custom and Standards Based B2B Solutions in the FIPER Environment” in Proc. of 11th Int. Conference on Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications. CE 2004, July 2004
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-  Bruce Barnett and Michael Lapinski, “Ad Hoc Dynamic Public Key Infrastructure Management” GE Global Research Internal Reports, July Issue, 2004
-  Master’s Thesis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., “FIPER Environment Notification Manager” Dec 2002
-  Invited Paper: Lapinski, M., Sobolewski, M, “Managing Notifications in a Federated Service to Service Environment”, Concurrent Engineering Research and Applications Journal, Vol 11, Nr 1, SAGE
-  Lapinski, M., Sobolewski, M., “Notification Manager in the FIPER Environment” in Proc of 8th Int. Conference on Concurrent Engineering. CE2001, August 2001, Anaheim, CA
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