joel hawkins
Resident Physicist/Innovation Engineer at Nike, Inc.
Portland, OR, USAMy work focuses on innovation and optimization in existing platforms, whether that comes about through experimentation, developing new software, or data analysis. With formal education in physics, mathematics, computation, music composition, and digital art, I combine my knowledge and interests in manufacturing, technology, internet culture, fashion, and design to all my creations–I firmly believe that my background/skills and multi-disciplinary approach is a critical, unique strength for innovation in any field. My goal is to identify and enhance points of weakness in production processes and continually invent intuitive, beautiful, optimized workflows.
Work Experience
Nike (USA)
Resident Physicist & Innovation Engineer
• Innovated advanced product creation processes of Nike FlyKnit footwear through continuous iteration of underlying software infrastructure to maximize efficiency.
• Optimized dispatching of unique work-orders to factory floor and developed paperless method to communicate instructions to factory operators.
• Designed & single-handedly coded environment aware Manufacturing Execution System (MES) REST API to operate on and maintain a realtime work-order database ensuring non-blocking interactions and scalability beyond multiple factory floors.
• Identified inefficient/obsolete stages in FlyKnit production (software and hardware) to ultimately deliver individualized merchandise to consumers in unprecedented delivery time while minimizing waste, maintaining sustainability.
• Worked closely with several manufacturing, design, and software development teams to mitigate design decisions with engineering capabilities.
• Performed exhaustive FlyKnit production scenarios & analyzed recorded data to quantify efficiency impact of varying production methods.
• Designed multiple proof-of-concept prototypes demonstrating proposed enhancements to user experience, sustainability, and workflow benefit to Nike designers, engineers, and project managers.
• Coded several advanced & innovative API extensions to PPM tool Workfront–most of which were first to be implemented here–which entirely automated the scheduling of knit tests of new products and managing workload of equipment and operators.
• Optimized dispatching of unique work-orders to factory floor and developed paperless method to communicate instructions to factory operators.
• Designed & single-handedly coded environment aware Manufacturing Execution System (MES) REST API to operate on and maintain a realtime work-order database ensuring non-blocking interactions and scalability beyond multiple factory floors.
• Identified inefficient/obsolete stages in FlyKnit production (software and hardware) to ultimately deliver individualized merchandise to consumers in unprecedented delivery time while minimizing waste, maintaining sustainability.
• Worked closely with several manufacturing, design, and software development teams to mitigate design decisions with engineering capabilities.
• Performed exhaustive FlyKnit production scenarios & analyzed recorded data to quantify efficiency impact of varying production methods.
• Designed multiple proof-of-concept prototypes demonstrating proposed enhancements to user experience, sustainability, and workflow benefit to Nike designers, engineers, and project managers.
• Coded several advanced & innovative API extensions to PPM tool Workfront–most of which were first to be implemented here–which entirely automated the scheduling of knit tests of new products and managing workload of equipment and operators.
February 2016
- March 2017
Portland, Oregon, United States
Education
Bachelor of Arts in Physics
I wrote a thesis utilizing cutting edge mathematical methods for analyzing pattern forming nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems, with a focus on programatic data analysis to quantify visual properties of these patterns. This project involved the mathematical concepts of "computational homology", programatic analysis to produce meaningful quantification of quantitative qualities, and interactive front-end web design to present complex information along with extensive documentation to enable further development (which successive students continue to study and extend). An overview with interactive data visualization is available on my website at http://joelhawkins.info/thesis.
August 2011
- May 2015
Portland, Oregon, United States
Languages
English (Native),
Spanish (Advanced),
Skills
Adobe Illustrator,
Adobe Photoshop,
JavaScript,
Node.js,
Web Design,
Web Development,