Nolan Juneau is a junior studying Electrical Engineering and minoring in Mechanical Engineering at UNH. Over the summer of 2024, he was granted a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)by the Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research to design an inexpensive autofocus system for cinema cameras, supervised by Prof. Richard Messner. This system uses LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging)technology to sense distances from a cinema camera’s lens to the camera’s subject and automatically pulls focus (based on software written for an Arduino Nano microcontroller) using a stepper motor to allow consistent autofocus implementation on any camera that otherwise lacks in-built autofocusing. Nolan highly recommends the Hamel Center’s research options (including the SURF, REAP, and URA awards) to all undergraduate students in the ECE department, as it allows students to gain experience with professional research while also allowing the freedom to explore their interests in a structured yet creative environment.
In addition to the SURF research project, Nolan has also been working for the IMAP 3UCubed research mission, led by Prof. Noe Lugaz from the Physics & Astronomy department. This mission aims to launch a CubeSatsatellite into low-Earth orbit to study the intensity of solar flares in the poles of Earth’s atmosphere—currently planning to launch in the fall of 2025.Nolan has been working as a hardware engineer and lab assistant for just over two years (joining the mission in October of 2022) and has focused on analog design and PCB manufacturing throughout his time on the mission.
Outside of academics, Nolan is an avid photographer, musician, and film enthusiast. He is a lead officer for UNH’s Wildcat Film Club, where he has worked as a cinematographer, writer, and/or director of several short films (with hopes of making a feature film before he graduates!), as well as a clarinetist in the UNH Wildcat Marching Band. When he has free time, Nolan also loves to go hiking, skiing, and sailing on the Atlantic coast. Nolan would like to thank all the faculty who have helped him to this point in his academic career and is very glad to be studying at UNH!
Skylar Gagnon is a senior studying computer engineering at UNH. For over a year, Skylar has been conducting research in the Resilient Architecture Lab under Prof. Dean Sullivan with an interest in microarchitecture security. They are currently developing an architecture fuzzing tool which can automatically discover microarchitectural attacks through the use of a large language model. Skylar has also previously worked on creating a transient execution attack variant capable of bypassing existing defenses. In addition, Skylar is currently working to establish a mentorship program within the ECE department to support underclassmen. Skylar wants to give people an opportunity to explore ECE applications without the pressure of prior experience or grades. The future goal is to expand the program to other departments to allow for interdisciplinary work as well.
After graduation, Skylar intends to continue conducting research and pursue a PhD. Skylar enjoys spending time with their fiancé, Steph, as well as spoiling their two cats, Phillip and Biscuit. Skylar also enjoys playing video games with friends.
