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Michael Ingram |
Mr. Michael Ingram is a GPS Systems engineer for Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was most recently elected as a member of the OES Administration committee this year.
Mr. Ingram attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, MA for an electrical engineering degree. While working in a co-op position his junior year, his heart told him that he didn't want to be stuck behind a computer. This led him to search for other avenues that could incorporate his interest in electrical engineering with those of the outdoors. The hook into ocean engineering came at the 1992 Oceans Conference in Newport, RI. The combination of fascinating presentations on ocean research and the wide variety of ocean engineering company exhibitors, provided the ticket that incorporated great technological challenges while operating in a rough but beautiful environment.
Mr. Ingram graduated from WPI in 1993 and immediately went to study for a Masters of Science degree in Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, its campus ideally situated on the Atlantic Ocean. His concentration was on underwater acoustics and ocean instrumentation. Advised by Dr. Robert Tyce, Mr. Ingram was a research assistant designing a ships motion sensor for wave compensation of Seabeam Instrument's acoustic mulit-beam sonar. This motion sensor incorporated inertial sensors and GPS blended together to provide attitude, speed and position. The project included designing and building a simulator platform that mimicked the motion of a vessel. He graduated with his masters in 1996 after working full-time at Seabeam for a year.
His work on ship's motion sensors and GPS lead him to the four corners of the earth with Seabeam and then with a new employer, Seatex Inc. in Seattle, WA. Seatex was a manufacturer of Motion Reference Units (MRUs) and DGPS systems for the offshore and hydrographic markets. Mr. Ingram also had the privilege to transfer to the Seatex headquarters in Trondheim, Norway for a year to work as a systems engineer. He managed two GPS projects for the European Union Government in testing the operation of the European Wide-area GPS correction system for ocean going vessels.
Mr. Ingram had the desire to move back to the states in the summer of 1999 but there was no longer a position to go back to in Seattle so he took a position with Draper Laboratory. His current work has been as a task leader for multiple projects including the Advances in GPS Development (AGD) sponsored by the DoD's Joint Program Office (JPO) and various autonomous systems. This new position has allowed Mr. Ingram to concentrate on research while organizing IEEE activities outside of the lab.
During this last year he established the Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) branch for the IEEE Boston Section. His positions within IEEE are Boston Section GOLD chair, support coordinator for the Student Professional Awareness Committee (SPAC), member of OES PACE GOLD and member of the OES Administration Committee. He has been a member of IEEE since 1990 and OES since 1992.