Ryan pursued a Master’s degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC Davis with an emphasis in robotics and controls. Courses in control systems and mechatronics during his undergraduate career were the driving factor behind his decision to pursue a graduate degree in the field. His research involved developing an approach to autonomous in-flight docking of unmanned multi-rotor aerial vehicles.

His previous experiences have been in the fields of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Heating, Ventilation and Cooling (HVAC). He spent three summers at NASA Ames Research Center generating overset structured grids for the Space Launch System (SLS) for use in CFD simulations as well as assisting in the improvement of CFD data organization and visualization techniques. His experience in the HVAC industry ranges from constructing building energy consumption simulations to designing cutting edge HVAC system retrofits.