Yelena V. O’Brien

Lecturer

Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept.
University of Wyoming
College of Engineering and Applied Science
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Dept. 3295
1000 E. University Avenue
Laramie, WY 82071
obrieny@uwyo.edu

Education

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, M.S. Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, August 1999.
University of Maryland, College Park, B.S. Electrical Engineering, December 1997.

Teaching Experience

University of Wyoming, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, January 2004 – Present.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, January 1998 – December 1999.

• ECSE 210, Computer Organization and Logic Design, Spring 1998.

Industrial Experience

General Dynamics Land Systems, GDAMS, October 2002 – August 2003. Senior engineer. Member of a team to design an armament control system for the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV) in use by the US Marine Corps; to develop, write, review, or interpret controls requirements design documents.
General Electric Power Systems, CASE, June 2000 – October 2002.  Gas/Steam turbine controls requisition engineer. Responsibilities included: review, interpret and clarify customer work requests and specs during order definition and controls finalization meetings for each assigned power site; issue appropriate mechanical, electrical, GT/ST controls and accessories engineering drawings and documents; review and modify unit controls code to meet customer design criteria; support field technical assistants during units startup and first fire to troubleshoot and diagnose any technical issues. Participated in Six Sigma and Cost Out projects. Greenbelt certified.
General Electric Power Systems, CASE, January 2000 – June 2000.  Co-op in DLN controls development and IGCC team. Lead the project to design a bias on transient combustion reference temperature TTRF1 time delay during turbine combustion fuel splits and mode transfers. Objectives to meet are to identify new process model based on real time field data, to design a control law to govern satisfactory system time and frequency responses, to develop a preliminary design standard, to execute field testing of the controller performance, and to summarize the results in terms of the updated design standard. The design results in dramatic improvement of system dynamic responses during the transient. Decrease of the both firing and exhaust temperatures overshoots and oscillations during load step changes and cyclic disturbance excitations makes substantial impact on and is beneficial to the customer.

Research Experience

RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, August 1998 – August 1999. Graduate Student.  Researched the similarity between Linear Quadratic Regulation and Internal Model Control. The result of the research was a novel tuning methodology for LQR applications.
NEW YORK STATE CENTER FOR AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGY, May 1998 – August, 1998. Research Assistant.  Member of a research team organized to develop a robotic system to automate postal operations for Lockheed Martin Corporation.
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK, September 1997 – December 1997. Undergraduate Student.  Assisted in the development of the FFSQP and the CFSQP software packages. These tools allowed the expeditious solution of complex, constrained quadratic programming problems.

Awards, Organizations, and Special Interests

• Fluent speaker of English, Russian, and Ukrainian
• Member Eta Kappa Nu, Spring 1997.
• Member Tau Beta Pi, Fall 1997.