IEEE Young Professionals Amplified Cleveland 2026 - Saturday Events and Monday NASA Tour
Friday, July 10 Happy Hour at Collision Bend
This is a separate event. Please register at: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/555421
Main Event: Saturday, July 11 – Main Event at Cleveland State University Glasscock Ballroom - 8:45am-5pm
Address: SC 311, 2121 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44115
Agenda: Please visit ieeecleveland.org/amplified
Dinner: Saturday, July 11 - 5:30pm
This dinner is open to anyone who registers and will occur in the Glasscock Ballroom. If attending, please indicate if you are interested by selecting it while registering.
NASA Tour: Monday, July 13 - Late Morning - Official Time TBA
For anyone interested in touring Cleveland’s NASA Glenn Research Center on Monday, July 13, please indicate interested by selecting this option while registering.
Please note that to be eligible for a tour of NASA, US Citizenship is required.
Registration may be first come, first served for this event as attendance is expected to be limited. More details will be posted soon.
Women in Engineering Track
If you are a member of IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) and would like to participate in the WIE breakouts, please indicate your selection during registration.
IEEE Cleveland Section
Please visit ieeecleveland.org to learn more about the Cleveland Section!
IEEE Cleveland Section is a proud recipient of the Greater Cleveland Partnership Best of Tech 2025 Award!
Date and Time
Location
Hosts
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- 2121 Euclid Avenue
- Cleveland, Ohio
- United States 44115
- Building: Glasscock Ballroom
- Starts 18 April 2026 04:00 AM UTC
- Ends 03 July 2026 04:00 PM UTC
- Admission fee ?
Speakers
Peter Sords
IoT Sandbox Breakout: IoT Basics with Peter Sords and Ken Loparo
Biography:
Peter Sords is the founder of Kyros Engineering, a Cleveland product-development firm building embedded firmware, electronics, and connected hardware across consumer, industrial, energy, and medical products. A B.S. Biomedical Engineer (Lehigh) and M.S. Electrical Engineer (Case Western), his work runs deep in system architecture, control systems and smart feedback, power electronics, and robotics — spanning autonomous warehouse robots, Factory 4.0 production systems, EV chargers, connected appliances, and edge-AI medical devices. That breadth is what lets him assemble the right curated team of proven specialists for each project — taking connected products from architecture through verified hardware.
Email:
Larry Sears
IoT Sandbox Breakout: Fireside Chat with Cleveland Legend, Larry Sears, the Inventor of IoT
Biography:
From case.edu:
When students enter the Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears think[box], they might find one of its namesakes at a workbench, soldering or swapping ideas with fellow makers.
“You learn by watching what other people are doing,” said Larry Sears (CIT ’69), who holds or co-holds nearly 20 patents. “I still do.”
A longtime Case Western Reserve University trustee and former adjunct professor of electrical engineering, Sears is a steady presence in the innovation center he helped bring to life.
Last year, for example, he helped start CWRU’s thinkSTEM, a summer day camp for middle-schoolers, introducing them to engineering. And last spring, he competed alongside students in the inaugural think[box] Derby with his own entry: a fan-powered car that started at the finish line and raced backward up the track.
“That’s what engineers do—figure out problems. And if they don’t have a problem to solve, they usually make one up themselves.”
—Larry Sears
His belief in hands-on learning goes back to his undergraduate days at Case Institute of Technology, when he held campus lab jobs working in electronics that provided foundational learning opportunities essential to his eventual success.
After graduation, Sears founded Hexagram Inc. and eventually developed wireless systems that allowed utilities to read gas, water and electric meters remotely—technology that helped usher in what is now known as smart metering.
“My real-world experience as an undergraduate was invaluable,” he said. “And I wanted to make sure that others had the same opportunity. Even if students were not fortunate enough to have the deep laboratory experiences that I had, I wanted to acquaint them with real-world design, engineering and manufacturing; engineers should understand how things are made.”
That belief became the foundation for Sears think[box].
After Hexagram’s sale in 2006, Larry Sears and his wife, Sally Zlotnick Sears (FSM ’72, LYS ’74), gave $6 million to create the Sears Undergraduate Design Lab. In 2012, they committed $5 million for think[box], then a small, new campus makerspace. They later gave another $5 million for the current space, a seven-story innovation center renamed in their honor.
In 2005, Larry Sears also began educating CWRU undergraduates, blending theory with practice as they designed, built and tested projects in “Applied Circuit Design,” which students often described as the “hardest and best” course they ever took.
In 2020, he earned a CWRU award for teaching excellence. “This sounds corny, but ‘Larry Lab’ changed my life,” one former student said at the time.
Thousands more—students, tinkerers and entrepreneurs—have been shaped by his teaching and the space he helped make possible.
Kartik Srinivasan
AI and Controls Breakout: AI for Autonomous Vehicles: From Foundation Models to Functional Safety with Kartik Srinivasan
Biography:
Kartik Srinivasan is a Staff Systems Engineer specializing in Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Verification & Validation (V&V) for autonomous vehicles. With over a decade of experience in automotive and autonomous systems, he has played a pivotal role in developing HIL V&V strategies for Level 4 autonomous trucks at Torc Robotics. His expertise includes designing HIL test environments, system integration, and test automation for safety-critical vehicle systems. Previously, Kartik led HIL validation teams at Motional, contributing to the development of Drive-by-Wire and Perception subsystem testing frameworks. His work at Nexteer Automotive and LG Chemical Power further strengthened his experience in mechatronic test benches, functional safety, and battery management systems. Holding a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Michigan Technological University, Kartik has pioneered innovative HIL testing methodologies. Passionate about AV safety and scalable validation frameworks, he actively contributes to advancing the field of autonomous mobility.
Colin Russell
Welcome to IEEE
Biography:
Colin Russell is a Computer Engineer from Youngstown, Ohio. He is the chair of the Young Professionals Affinity Group within the IEEE Cleveland Section. Additionally, he is the Vice Chair of Events for IEEE Regions 1 and 2 Young Professionals. Colin is a Software Engineer at Nationwide where he specializes in writing backend software for the financial services industry. Colin is a graduate of Ohio University, where he was an ambassador for the Russ College of Engineering and Technology's Electrical Engineering program and chair of the university's student section of IEEE. While chair of the Ohio University IEEE branch, Colin organized presentations featuring guest speakers from prestigious organizations including NASA, Boeing, the Department of Energy, and Ohio University's own professors. In addition to leading the Ohio University IEEE section, Colin worked with the student ExCom to revitalize the university's Eta Kappa Nu section. To further his education, Colin is currently pursing a Master's of Science in Computer Science from Tufts University.
Rachel Dudukovich
Biography:
From https://ai-action.org/person/rachel-dudukovich/:
Dr. Rachel Dudukovich is the cognitive networking lead for the NASA Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) Cognitive Communications Project. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 2019. Her research and development efforts are focused on applying machine learning and artificial intelligence to networking technologies for space communications. She is interested in determining and developing the essential building blocks to enable cognitive communications in space, as well as infusing modern networking technologies into the NASA communication networks. She is also the software development lead for the High-rate Delay Tolerant Networking project. Her interests include network emulation, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, delay tolerant networking, and open-source software collaborations.
Claire Harding
WIE Breakout: Claire Harding | NASA Glenn Research Center
