Ian Snider
curriculum vitae
↓ PDF
Ian Snider
Roboticist designing autonomous aerial vehicles for radiation mapping.
iqsnider@berkeley.edu iansnider.com iqsnider Berkeley, CA
Education
Ph.D. Nuclear Engineering, Robotics
Aug 2025 – present
University of California, Berkeley
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
May 2025
Washington University in St. Louis
GPA 4.00 / 4.00
B.A. Physics, Math minor
Dec 2024
Truman State University
GPA 3.89 / 4.00
Projects
Sniff Consensus Protocol for Noisy Multi-Agent Formations — Developer
Fall 2025
  • Consensus protocol for a random graph of agents perturbed with communication noise
  • Used Erdos-Renyi graphs to generate adjacency matrices and applied communication noise with Random Matrix Theory
  • Used ROS2, Python, and Rust for design, simulations, and stability analysis
WashU Robotics MateROV & MARINER Projects — Mechanical Lead
2023 – 2025
  • Designed and tested an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV)
  • Prototyped dive control using an IMU and depth state estimation with a Kalman Filter for 1D hovering
  • Used Arduino for programming AUV sensors and control system
  • Built a chassis and buoyancy engine
CrazyFlie 2.1 Cascaded PID/PD Control System — ESE 4481 Student
Spring 2025
  • Designed a control system for a CrazyFlie 2.1 quadcopter and achieved stable hovering
  • Used Simulink and MATLAB for simulating the control system response and finding stability margins
  • Used C to program the quadcopter embedded system
Experience
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — Lab Affiliate, Berkeley, CA
Aug 2025 – present
  • Studied slung-payload algorithms for a radiation detector tethered to an autonomous hexacopter
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — Graduate Intern, Livermore, CA
June 2025 – present
  • Developed CRISP (CRItical Simulation Pipeline), a Python tool for parallelizing and distributing HPC jobs
  • Test driven Python development included Poetry, CI/CD, SQLite, MPI, CLI, feature branching, and Sphinx
  • Used 2 world-class LLNL HPC clusters Dane and Ruby with Slurm sbatch/srun scripts
  • CRISP successfully automated compilation and benchmarking workflows for ~3420 reactor simulation cases
Brookhaven National Laboratory — Student Researcher, Upton, NY
Summers 2022 – 2024
  • Developed BRR (Bayesian Resonance Reclassifier) for reclassification tasks on HPC clusters
  • Applied machine learning using Scikit-learn to classify nuclear data
  • Used Random Matrix Theory for finding and scaling eigenvalues to build synthetic training sets
  • Used the transport code OpenMC and HPC clusters to parallel process sensitivity analyses for reactor models
Truman State University — Student Astronomy Researcher, Kirksville, MO
2021 – 2022
  • Calculated trajectories for ~3000 Starlink satellites to optimize telescope viewing plans and developed a GUI
Skills
Programming C, C++, Python, Go, Bash, Lua, MATLAB, Mathematica, Octave, LaTeX, Typst, Vimscript
Software Simulink, SolidWorks, OpenMC, COG, MCNP, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, Slurm, Git, Linux, Arduino
Physics Autonomous Aerial Vehicle Control, Classical Mechanics, Electrodynamics, Electronics, Vibrations, Quantum Mechanics, Mathematical Physics, Nuclear Physics, Fluid Mechanics, Solid Mechanics, Acoustics, Materials Science, Thermal Systems, Criticality Safety, Radiobiology, Turbojets, Ramjets
Math Linear Algebra, ODEs, Computing Structures, Control Systems, Machine Learning, Random Walks, Random Matrix Theory, Orthogonal Groups, Optimizations
Activities
WashU Robotics — Mechanical Lead
2020 – 2023
  • Mechanical lead on the MateROV underwater robotics team
WashU Climbing — Member
2023 – 2025
  • Indoor and outdoor bouldering and lead climbing
Society of Physics Students — Demo Chair
2020 – 2023
  • Developed 3 new physics demos, performed demos at meetings, and provided volunteer physics tutoring
  • Wrote and proctored exams for 2022 & 2023 Science Olympiads ("Crave the Wave" and "Remote Sensing")
Technical Reports & Abstracts
  1. G. Nobre et al., "Annual Report on NCSP Technical Support task in BNL during FY24," 2024. doi: 10.2172/2474826
  2. I. Snider, G. Nobre, and D. Brown, "Resonance Capture Widths for the Bayesian Resonance Reclassifier," in APS Meeting Abstracts, Jan. 2023, p. DB3.074. ADS link
  3. I. Snider, G. Nobre, D. Brown, and W. Fritsch, "Accuracy Correlation in Neutron Resonance Reclassification," Bulletin of the American Physical Society, vol. 67, 2022.
Conference Presentations
  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Student Research Conference. LLNL B511, Livermore, CA — August 7, 2025
  • Brookhaven National Laboratory Student Research Conference. BNL Bldg. 488, Upton, NY — August 9, 2024
  • American Physical Society – Division of Nuclear Physics & Japan Physical Society joint fall meeting. Hilton Waikoloa Village, The Big Island, HI — Nov 27–Dec 1, 2023
  • Brookhaven National Laboratory Student Research Conference. BNL Bldg. 488, Upton, NY — August 10, 2023
  • Truman State University Student Research Conference. Kirksville, MO — April 21, 2023
  • American Physical Society – Division of Nuclear Physics fall meeting. Hyatt Regency Hotel, New Orleans, LA — October 29–31, 2022
  • Brookhaven National Laboratory Student Research Conference. BNL Bldg. 488, Upton, NY — August 11, 2022
Honors
Kenneth L. Jerina Prize for Outstanding Dual-Degree in Mechanical Engineering — WashU Engineering
April 2025
  • Honored for academic achievements and engineering community contributions
Conference Experience for Undergraduates 2023 — APS DNP
September 2023
  • Competitive research abstract award
  • Invitation to present a research poster at the APS DNP Fall 2023 conference on The Big Island, HI
Conference Experience for Undergraduates 2022 — APS DNP
August 2022
  • Competitive research abstract award
  • Invitation to poster presentation at the APS DNP Fall 2022 meeting in New Orleans, LA
Sigma Pi Sigma Honor Society — Truman State University
May 2022
  • Recognized for service and academic scholarship in physics