Cube, Ember’s first product in their Life Sciences division, is a groundbreaking solution for tracking and maintaining the target temperatures for critical, temperature-sensitive medical supplies, like vaccines. The product aims to replace the current shipping solution of heavy, insulated cardboard boxes, which are environmentally wasteful, process intensive, and often inefficient at keeping their payloads within temperature spec over the entirety of the shipping duration. Instead, the Ember Cube is a reusable, vacuum insulated shipper capable of maintaining a precise 2-8 C range for 72 hours with both location and temperature tracking built-in, as well as an onboard cooling system that both re-charges the thermal ‘ice packs’ between shipments and can be used as an intervention to prevent payloads from exceeding temperature limits when delayed in shipment.

As the Lead Mechanical Engineer on the active cooling system, I was responsible for the design and development of the on-board thermal cooling engine. From concept to the first full-functional integrated prototype, I led the research and development effort to model, prototype, test, and optimize the TEC powered, liquid-to-air thermal transfer system including the fluidics system, heat exchanger designs, TEC integration, heat sink design and optimization, and air flow system. In addition to the thermal engine, I also led the electromechanical integration and thermal architecture efforts for the insulated payload container, control PCBAs, charging contacts, and user interface button.