Sensing & Measurement Engineering — Instrumentation, Signal Quality & Test Infrastructure

Sensor characterization, measurement-performance validation, test-fixture design, and signal-quality investigation across industrial, field, and research environments. Physics foundation with deep experience in electromagnetic coupling, grounding practice, and instrument calibration.

ceremona@gmail.com · 206.414.9448 · ceredavis.com · github.com/ceremona · linkedin.com/in/ceredavis

Trajectory

Physical measurement systems end to end: designing, building, commissioning, calibrating, and maintaining instruments and data-acquisition infrastructure; root-causing sensor signal issues from field observation to bench reproduction; and separating true physical signals from equipment and data artifacts. Physics foundation with published field-geophysics research and hands-on electromagnetic diagnostics. Currently focused on sensing performance, measurement validation, and test infrastructure.

Professional Experience

Independent Systems Engineer & Research Consultant · Jul 2012 – Present Berkeley, CA · Hybrid / Remote

Independent instrumentation and measurement practice serving industrial, energy, and environmental clients, with project-based engagements typically running three to twelve months. The practice has run alongside concurrent residencies at science and maker institutions (see Residencies & Community) and graduate study (relocated to Germany in 2019; MA, 2020–2022).

• Independent R&D (2025–Present): Self-directed study in sensing, measurement, and physical computation. New domains are approached by building reduced-scale prototypes of the core measurement problem — recent examples include a pulse-response fixture for supercapacitor ESR and capacitance (SPICE model and analysis pipeline validated against injected ground truth; oscilloscope capture validated against a Siglent SDS804X HD) and a Li-ion cycle-life data pipeline with per-cycle integrity auditing.
• Coherer & memristive computation (2026, in development): Research and exhibit development on the Branly coherer — an early RF detector whose history-dependent resistance switching is argued in the literature to be memristive — as a physical computing substrate and interactive public exhibit (California Historical Radio Society). RF and device characterization; electrode geometry exploration using a Sierpinski gasket to distribute RF energy across the ground plane; durability engineering for long-term public interaction.
• Owner-performed renovation (Mar 2023 – Apr 2024): Electrical and plumbing for a full house renovation ahead of sale; extensive fault-tracing and diagnosis of legacy knob-and-tube circuits.
• All Power Labs (May–Aug 2019): Designed, built, and field-tested a thermal measurement system for industrial pyrolysis and gasification reactors — researched and selected temperature sensors, analog frontend and PCB design (KiCad, LTSpice), signal conditioning, calibration, and real-time data acquisition under thermal and electrical noise.
• Inspect Air Quality (2017): Wrote data-acquisition and control code for environmental sensor systems on 32-bit microcontrollers; authored deployment SOPs enabling non-specialist operators to run equipment in the field.
• ElectroTherm (2014–2015): Validated solar-tracker performance against NREL reference datasets, quantifying power-conversion gains against a national standard.
• Energy R&D client (2013–2014): Operated and maintained instrumentation monitoring thermal output of a pressure-vessel reactor; performed thermocouple calibration against a water-bath reference; built LabVIEW/NI data-acquisition infrastructure.
• Mechatronic & kinetic systems: Sensor-driven kinetic assemblies with real-time closed-loop motor control — accelerometers, IMUs, and position sensors integrated with Pure Data and SuperCollider for feedback and interactive systems. Strain-gauge prototyping in sculpture; soldering and custom driver-circuit assembly. CAD (Fusion 360), digital fabrication (3D printing, laser cutting, vinyl cutting), embedded programming (C/C++, Python, microcontrollers), custom cabling.
• Research & prototyping: Iterative hardware/software design for scientific instrumentation; sensor mounting and wiring practice, grounding and noise control; laboratory testing protocols, data analysis, and materials characterization.

Principal Platform Design Engineer, VCE · Jun 2011 – Jun 2012 · Full-time San Jose, CA · On-site

• Architected fully integrated compute/storage/network platforms for enterprise deployment (EMC, Cisco, VMware stack).
• Owned cross-subsystem integration and hardware-to-orchestration validation loops.

Senior Solutions Architect, Wholem IT · May 2010 – Sep 2010 · Contract Greater Seattle Area · Hybrid

• Directed the enterprise migration of an entire institutional IT infrastructure to Google Workspace. Built the transition roadmap and coordinated execution across identity/security, DNS, databases, email, and filesystems.
• Required cross-departmental diplomacy and director-level leadership; delivered a cohesive, institution-wide cutover with zero downtime.

Cofounder & Lead Architect, Election Verification Network · Jul 2003 – Jul 2010 Seasonal / National

• Architected and built an integrated front-end/back-end incident-reporting system in partnership with Verified Voting and CPSR (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility) — end-to-end data capture, structured records, and database design.
• Owned data integrity for a national monitoring program: accurate capture, review workflows, and auditable, traceable records.

Pre / Post-Sales Enterprise Network Engineer, F5 Networks · Oct 2006 – Jun 2010 Seattle, WA · On-site

• Network forensics & protocol analysis: Used Wireshark and custom tooling for deep L1–7 packet and protocol analysis. Reproduced complex customer network pathologies in the lab, isolating root cause across routing, TCP/IP, SSL, and application-layer behavior.
• Systems prototyping: Built complex, multi-vendor lab environments (Cisco 6500, VMware ESX, LanForge packet generators) to mirror production failure modes.
• Automation & performance: Developed test automation, instrumentation, and standardized validation protocols for Alpha/Beta release testing.
• Operational ownership: Owned escalation triage for WAN optimization products; led weekly technical support case reviews and fed supportability findings back to product engineering.

Senior System Architect & Engineer, University of Washington · Jul 1997 – Jul 2005 Seattle, WA · Full-time

• Kernel & distributed systems: Modified Linux kernel headers and source in C for compatibility with the OpenMosix distributed process-migration patch. Debugged race conditions and memory-model issues across a clustered Unix environment.
• Cluster architecture: Architected and built a research-grade Unix compute cluster and network infrastructure from the ground up; held sole operational ownership of uptime and incident response. Developed load-gathering tools (Python), TCP/IP state-tracking utilities, and automation frameworks for cluster software deployment and performance regression testing.
• Database-backed tooling: Built account-management and operational software on MySQL (Ruby, Python).
• Virtualization: Deployed and managed Xen and VMware virtual-desktop environments.
• Training & mentorship: Trained coworkers and new hires on operational infrastructure; presented courses and technical talks on the computing environment.

Unix Systems Administrator, North Seattle Community College · 1996–1997

Unix Systems Deployment Engineer, Digital Systems Inc. · 1995

Science Technician, South Pole Station, Antarctica · 1993–1994 Atmospheric ozone / optical and RF instrumentation

• Instrument operations & calibration: Operated, maintained, and repaired optical, UV-A/B/C, and aurora/airglow measurement instruments; performed routine calibration checks and instrument verification on a rotating schedule.
• Repair & electronics: Performed component-level repair and soldering (including transistor replacement on amplifier boards) with no resupply available.
• Grounding & noise control: Worked daily against capacitive coupling and grounding problems in a high-EMI environment; assisted in diagnosis and repair of the station’s first satellite ground station, working with spread-spectrum and quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) signals.
• Field conditions: Collected continuous data through the Antarctic winter; diagnosed and repaired instrument failures in isolation, with no possibility of recovering lost data.

Seismological Data Analyst, University of Alaska Fairbanks — Geophysical Institute · 1991–1993 Field seismology / multi-station network data

• Field deployment: Assisted in regional seismometer field deployment, with attention to sensor mounting and grounding in the field.
• Network data quality: Monitored data quality and instrument health across a multi-station seismic network, distinguishing instrument faults from genuine geophysical signals.
• Anomaly triage: Identified anomalous simultaneous signals across stations, showed the simultaneity could not be explained by acoustic propagation, and traced the signal to volcanic lightning (inductive electromagnetic pickup) — leading to a co-authored publication.

Publications

• S.R. McNutt & C.M. Davis, “Lightning Associated with the 1992 Eruptions of Crater Peak, Mount Spurr Volcano, Alaska,” Journal of Volcanology & Geothermal Research, 2000.
• S.R. McNutt & C.M. Davis, “Volcanic Lightning at Mt. Spurr, 1992,” Colima Volcano: Fourth International Meeting, Colima, Mexico, 1994, Abstracts Volume, p. 112.
• C.M. Davis, “Volcanic lightning observations” — Mount Spurr (EOS/AGU, 1993).
• C.M. Davis, “A Comparison of Micro-Viscosity to Shear Viscosity in Lyotropic Nematic Liquid Crystals,” Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 1993.

Tools & Methods

Test & Measurement: test-fixture design, sensor selection and characterization, sensor mounting and wiring, signal conditioning, calibration and preventive maintenance (thermocouple water-bath reference), measurement uncertainty, grounding and noise practice, SOP development, root-cause analysis, hardware-in-the-loop test infrastructure Instrumentation: oscilloscope (Siglent SDS804X HD, SCPI over LAN), DAQ, LabVIEW with NI hardware/modules, LTSpice/SPICE circuit simulation, KiCad Sensors: thermocouples, accelerometers, IMUs, position sensors, strain gauges (prototype), seismometers Signal & Data: sampling (Nyquist) fundamentals, time-series analysis, uncertainty quantification; Python (NumPy, SciPy, pandas), MATLAB (coursework); structured experimental records Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL — deployment, administration, and schema design; SQL query layers, database-backed tooling Systems: Linux kernel internals, distributed systems, TCP/IP networking (L1–7), virtualization (Xen, VMware), Kubernetes (self-directed multi-node test deployments), automation frameworks, git, CI Hardware & Fabrication: microcontrollers, embedded systems, custom cabling, soldering and component-level repair, CAD (Fusion 360), 3D printing, laser cutting, vinyl cutting

Education

• BS, Physics — University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1992
• Graduate coursework, Statistics & Epidemiology — University of Washington, 2000–2006
• MA, Philosophy of Science — Leibniz Universität Hannover, 2022

Residencies & Community

• Artist in Residence, Manylabs · 2016 — sensor-driven kinetic systems, closed-loop motor control, exhibit hardware prototyping. San Francisco Bay Area
• Artist in Residence, Chabot Space & Science Center · Dec 2017 – Feb 2018 — Oakland, CA
• Science-Art Director, Counter Culture Labs · 2013–2016 — Berkeley, CA
• Board Member, Counter Culture Labs · 2014–2016
• Education Exhibit Designer, California Historical Radio Society · 2026