Summary
I’m a divergent engineer at Northwestern who loves turning ideas into useful, human-centered products. I work at the intersection of technology, design, and business—framing problems clearly, aligning teams, and driving projects from concept to launch with a focus on real impact. My experience spans AI, space technology, fintech, and nonprofit work, and includes leading cross-functional efforts and contributing to a nationally recognized NASA project. Curious and execution-driven, I learn fast, communicate simply, and bring a startup lens to everything I build. Outside of work, I’m a world traveler, athlete, and foodie who draws inspiration from new places, people, and flavors. Feel free to reach out and get in touch!
Hey, I’m Devan Chanda - builder’s mindset, market focus - creating innovative products that build the future. I translate complex engineering into user-facing outcomes with clear specs, rapid prototyping, and metrics that matter. I am eager to apply my Engineering and Business background to forge the future of Tech.
Experience
AI Engineering Intern
2025 - Present
Unigen Corporation
Currently training within Unigen’s Technical Product Marketing Team as an AI SWE intern this summer. I’m pursuing an independent project that splits a large language model across two AI accelerator cards which effectively doubles its processing power to achieve much faster on-device performance. This edge AI solution will deliver rapid, low-latency inference with no cloud dependency.
Implementing on-device LLM inference by sharding a large model (Llama 3-8B with KV Cache/smooth quant) across two AI accelerator cards; baseline 3.5 tokens/sec, targeting >5 tokens/sec for lower-latency, no-cloud operation.
Built and maintain an inference server; handle DevOps to run controlled tests and measure throughput and latency
Continuing remotely in the fall to finalize the dual-accelerator LLM demo and support additional projects; work focuses on showcasing AI applications on Unigen hardware to enable product marketing and customer-facing proof points.
NASA/NIA-FUNDED Engineer
2023 - 2025
NUSTARS Space Technology Team
Member of the Design and Heat Transfer Teams within the NUSTARS Space Technology Team. Responsible for research, computations, and direct application of novel team-developed technology in the NASA BIG IDEAS 2024 Inflatables Project for lunar applications. The NUSTARS Space Technology Team recently received the Artemis Award and highest honors in November 2024 for our project "M.E.T.A.L.S."
Inflatable Metal Technology for Lunar Applications
Owned early problem framing and use-case/PRD for NASA BIG IDEAS Inflatables; co-authored proposal that helped secure $147k in research funding from NASA and NAI; developed early novel modular inflatable-metal concepts.
Coordinated design + data subteams; set requirements/acceptance criteria, ran reviews, prioritized the backlog for modular inflatable metal structures, and unified experiment/simulation data and analyzed regolith heat transfer.
Team selected as finalist in Las Vegas; awarded National Champion (Artemis Award) by a panel of industry judges.
Northwestern Engineering Student
2022 - Present
McCormick School of Engineering & Applied Science
Currently a Fourth Year at Northwestern University studying Computer Engineering and Business Institutions.
Academic Projects
Notable Coursework
Computer Programming
Linear Algebra
Probabilistic Systems
Advanced Digital Design
Computer Architecture
Introduction to Electrical Engineering
Computer Systems
Electronics
Physics
Operating Systems
Data Structures
Signals
Microcontroller System Design
Introduction to Machine Learning
Design, Thinking, & Communication
Micro/Macro-Economics
Leadership in Organizations
Accounting
Entrepreneurship
Engineering Law
Start-up Head of Social Marketing
2023 - Present
Fable Mason Studios @ The Garage Northwestern
Primary member of a film and audio production studio start-up company in the Garage at Northwestern University. Responsible for all media-related marketing for the company including social and physical branding as it gets off the ground.
New Releases
FIntech Analyst Intern
2023
TerraPay
Received financial technology, foreign exchange trading, legal, data analytics, and business development training on-site along with the a virtual term allotted to pursue a finance competitive forex and fee data analysis project
Built a Python/Excel benchmarking model (14 competitors, 16 currencies; $1,000 base case) to standardize FX/fee vs. market rates into a single Treasury view; introduced a Cost-to-Receive metric showing 12/16 “best deals” were driven by top FX spread and recommended a high-spread + low-fee strategy (avg top deals ~3.75% spread, ~$2.06 fee).
Rotated onto the FX trading team to validate assumptions in live markets - shadowed liquidity management, stress-tested spreads/fees during peak windows, and fed insights back to tune the model and update the treasury playbook.
Co-Founder / Co-President
2020 - 2022
Pandemic Academics
Co-leader of a diverse team dedicated to leading an educational non-profit organization both in the La Jolla, CA community and the Tijuana, MX community. This organization was in operation amid online (distance) learning and helped both communities develop new friendships, become culturally immersed, and supplement their respective schoolwork.
Outreach Content (2021)
Founded a cross-border pandemic nonprofit and launched a pod-based virtual STEM & language program; set KPIs, built the ops stack, built a website, and recruited/trained 15 tutors with school/district partners. Served 100+ students; increased weekly attendance from ~60–70% → ~85–90% and raised average grades by ~8–12 points across 2 years.
Research Scholar
2021 - 2022
Pioneer Academics
The Pioneer Research Program provides undergraduate-level research opportunities to talented, intellectually motivated high school students from around the world. It is the only online credit-bearing research program for high school students that offers STEM, social sciences and humanities disciplines.
In the Pioneer Research Program, selected students work one-on-one with leading U.S. university professors in advanced study and research of a topic of interest, culminating in a full-length research paper. The program is conducted entirely online, allowing high school students from all over the world to participate.
My course was Applied Mathematics for Engineers under my mentor Professor Zbigniew Kabala PhD., and my research paper was entitled "Determining the Feasbility of a
Lagrange Point-Based LODR System."
Undergraduate-Level Research Paper
Investigated LEO debris mitigation; designed and simulated a Lagrange-point laser approach in Mathematica/Python, evaluating power/pointing/dwell-time requirements.Produced an undergraduate-level research paper with faculty mentors (Duke, Harvard–Smithsonian) and a roadmap for future validation.
President/volunteer
2018 - 2022
National League of Young Men - La Jolla
NLYM is a mother-son philanthropy nonprofit organization dedicated to helping our community as well as enriching the development of young men through leadership involvement, community service, cultural experiences, and protocol education.
Elected and served as president of my senior high school class, my jobs include leading chapter meetings, overseeing philanthropy and protocol events, and ensuring class achieves their goals and fulfills their community service.
Through NLYM, have volunteered 150+ hours, dedicating time to various causes related to hunger, education, disability, and health.
Student Engineer
2020
BlueStamp Engineering
In the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the BlueStamp Engineering Program was made virtual. This program consisted of researching, designing, and creating a project with the assistance of the instructors and peers, with weekly speakers from leaders in the engineering industry.
Final Deliverables
Under an undergraduate mentor, designed, coded, and built an Arduino self-driving and voice-activated robotic car. Exposed to hands-on engineering environment and industry leader speakers. Presented work and collaborated with peers to improve. Also created website documenting my methodology
Background
Education
Awards
McCormick School of Engineering Dean's List
Artemis Award (NASA)
San Diego Mesa CC Dean's List
La Jolla High School Cum Laude Society
Helmsman Award for Community Leadership
Ensign Award for Community Service
National Merit Scholarship Finalist
AP Scholar with Distinction
National Latin Exam Summa Cum Laude
Certifications
HeartSaver First Aid CPR & AED (2019)
Agent of Change (2018)
PADI Open-Water Diver (2015)
SkillS & Tools
Programming Languages
Hardware
Prototyping
Product Design
Marketing
LLM Sharding
Jira
Figma
SolidWorks
Cursor
Sketch
Git
Netron
MATLAB
Excel
Interests
Sports
Travel
Eats
Beli: dchans_grub
© 2025 Devan Chanda
