About Me

Hello curious soul!

My name is Austin Jean McDonald & I'm an engineer.

I grew up in Ypsilanti, Michigan, but currently live in Houghton as I pursue my Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan Technological University.

Whenever I can get away from my coursework, I like to spend my time taking apart old consumer electronics to see how they were designed and to try my hand at modifying them, replicating them, and improving them.

The inspiration of my youth is the wonderful Limor Fried, and just as Adafruit Industries is her passion project, Novice Productions is mine. I hope to soon enter the realm of video production to help teach other young engineers about electronics from the perspective of (perhaps) an equally confuddled individual.

My personal hobbies are: reading a mystery novel, improvising a guitar solo over a 12 bar blues track, challenging myself to a distance run through some local trails, eating kettle corn at the cinema, and piecing together an impressive looking LEGO model.

Hmm, this headshot is quite out of date...

I bet LinkedIn has a more recent one ;)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-jean-mcdonald/ 

What I do Professionally

So far, life has led me to work at MTU's Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (PSTDL aka HuskyWorks). There, I've been mostly designing power electronics, populating PCBs, and doing my best to not cause too big of electrical fires.

There's lots of different people and projects at HuskyWorks.

Check it out