Donavon Clay

hey! i'm donavon :)

After what might've been four of the best years of my life, I've just recently graduated from MIT with my B.S in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. My professional interests center around developing embedded systems and IoT devices, and I'd particularly like to focus on their applications in smart cities, the built environment, and medical devices.

Currently, I'm spending the summer in Belfast at Queen's University Belfast via MIT's MISTI program, where I'm helping out as a research intern under Prof. John McAllister.

I'm from San Antonio, TX, though I've moved around quite a bit over the years due to my parents being in the military. I've grown to welcome the change, and I love meeting new people and experiencing new places! In my free time, you can find me playing volleyball, basketball, board games, video games, hanging with friends and family, or enjoying a strawberry smoothie.

Check out my projects

/// Background and Experience

Work Experience

June 2025 - Present

Research Assistant

Queen's University Belfast | Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology

Hardware implementation and acceleration of TPG classifiers for ECG and retinomorphic signal processing applications.

September 2024 - January 2025

Undergraduate Researcher

MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics | Lewis Lab

Worked on an open-sourced EEG headband system with closed-loop auditory stimulation for home-based neuromodulation sleep studies.

June 2024 - August 2024

Firmware Engineering Intern

Cisco Meraki | MX SDWAN

Enhanced a network path monitoring tool using C++ to support feature development for multiple teams.
Delivered rapid bug fixes for critical customer deals and increased test coverage with new unit and integration tests (C++ and Python)

June 2023 - August 2023

Software Engineering Intern

Slack | Data Ingestion

Read this article about my intern experience in the Data Engineering org!

Developed SQL queries to populate a dashboard visualizing data pipeline performance, enabling proactive management for engineering teams.
Automated data extraction and ingestion by querying a RESTful API using Python and SQL, processing JSON data, and scheduling tasks with Apache Airflow into an S3-based data warehouse.

Education

September 2021 - May 2025

B.S. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

GPA: 4.8/5.0
Favorite Classes: Embedded Systems, Digital Systems Lab, Systems and Controls, Microcomputer Project Lab, Digital Fabrication, Data Science for Cities, Engineering for Impact, Toy Product Design
Organizations: National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Undergraduate Student Advisory Group in EECS, Club Volleyball, Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN), Zeta Psi, Office of the First Year (Orientation Leader + Associate Advisor)
Undergraduate Teaching:
- Lab Assistant for 6.1903/4 Introduction to C & Assembly, Spring 2025
- Lab Assistant for 6.2000 Introduction to Circuits, Fall 2024
- Lab Assistant for 6.100A/B Introduction to Python, Spring 2023
- Teaching Assistant/Grader for 8.02 Physics II: Electricity & Magnetism, Spring 2022 -- Spring 2024
- Lab Assistant for 6.A01 First-Year Illuminations Seminar, Fall 2022

October 2023 - March 2024

Exchange Year

Imperial College London

Hosted by the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Favorite Classes: Biomedical Electronics, Human-Centered Robotics, Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition, The Science of Learning

/// My Projects

6.900 - MITOSIS

Environmental sensing units developed for MIT's Office of Sustainability, aiding in urban heat island research in a team of 8 for MIT's 6.900 class.

Physical MBTA Tracker v1

A mechanical display of the MBTA's real-time train data, using 2-D gantry with NEMA steppers, magnets, and an ESP32 for Harvard's PS70 Intro to Digital Fabrication.

2.00B - Super Sync

A children's 2v2 reaction-based game developed in a team of 5 for MIT's 2.00B Toy Product Design class.

Currently updating this website with more of my projects — stay tuned! Documentation's just a Teensy bit exhausting lol