Joshua Duarte

ABOUT ME

I'm a mechanical engineer, designer, and maker. Today I work as a Senior Mechanical Engineer on the Drive Unit team at Lucid Motors, where I lead design, integration, and validation across the Air, Gravity, and Sapphire electric powertrain programs. My work takes hardware from concept and CAD through prototype builds, testing, and production release. I earned my B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University and my M.Eng. from U.C. Berkeley, and along the way I had the privilege of interning at Boeing, ExxonMobil, and Northrop Grumman.

Outside of my day job, I believe in relentless learning and I love building things end to end. I've made an automated chessboard that moves its own pieces, a 3-axis camera gimbal, and a sign language interpreter, and I'm currently developing Aucosto, a full-stack personal operations platform. I also care deeply about community. I served as President of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, where I grew the chapter past 400 members, and today I serve as Vice President of Lucid's HOLA employee resource group.

SKILLS

SolidWorks Fusion 360 CATIA V6 Python C++ HTML CSS Arduino 3D Printing
GD&T DFM/DFA FEA Data Analysis Bilingual (English/Spanish)

EXPERIENCE

Senior Mechanical Engineer, Drive Unit at Lucid Motors

January 2024 - Present

Leading cross-functional sustaining engineering across the Air, Gravity, and Sapphire drive unit programs, driving root-cause investigations, supplier and manufacturing improvements, design optimization, and data-driven tools that improve quality, reliability, cost, and efficiency.
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Boeing Test & Evaluation Flight Test Design/Build Intern

May 2021 - August 2021

Designed, prototyped, manufactured, and installed foreign object debris shields within the only 4 existing 777X aircrafts.

UIS Wells Digital Innovation & Automation Intern

May 2020 - August 2020

Developed and enhanced a SharePoint tool that captures and distributes learnings found during the Well construction process using Nintex Forms/Workflows, JavaScript, jQuery, HTML, CSS, along with VBA within Excel

Technical College Intern, Aerospace Systems

May 2019 - August 2019

Top-Secret Clearance

Constructed models, assemblies, and engineering drawings using 3D modeling and design software, CATIA V5, to fabricate solutions

TAMU SHPE President

May 2021 - May 2022

Led 8 board members to continuously impact members through professional, academic, technical, and social development which resulted in more than 400 members registered with the organization, a 74.7% increase in members from the previous year

TAMU SHPE Director of Technical Affairs

May 2020 - May 2021

Established a committee of 47 members, a 571% increase from the previous years, that assisted in the organization’s website development duties, point automation, and application development projects. Organized several initiatives that provided members with the opportunity to learn web development, JavaScript, and team skills

UC Berkeley MEng Ambassador

September 2022 - Present

Engagde with prospective students by representing the Master of Engineering program with an aim to recruit and inform. Oversaw the creation and execution of events for the 2022-2023 cohort to establish a greater sense of community and connection

PROJECTS

Aucosto

A personal operating system that unifies time tracking, calendar, finance, tasks, habits, and projects into one context-aware workspace. Built with Next.js, React, Prisma, and Supabase.
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Ana & Joshua Wedding Site

A bilingual (EN/ES) wedding website for our September 2026 celebration in Monterey, California. It includes RSVP, an event schedule, and guest login. Built with Next.js and TypeScript.
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Gambit

A completely automated chess set capable of challenging Grandmasters. I am leading the Hardware Design within the system. Currently in the subsytem design and testing phase.
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Blue Gogi: Omni Directional Treadmill

Developing a treadmill capable of allowing users to move endlessly in any direction while maintaining an immersive and safe experience within virtual reality.
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Vision Pro Packaging

Spent seven days following the design process to create the packaging of the unreleased Apple Vision Pro that will be released in early 2024.
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Ethnicity Prediction Neural Network

Explored how various neural network models are used to help predict ethnicity while keeping in check the ethical concerns pertaining to the test cases.
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Gimbal

Created a multi axis slider and gimbal for my webcam to allow for the easy manipulation of camera angles during virtual meetings and events for better presentation purposes.
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Nissan Design Challenge

Worked with two others to create a augmented reality platform that would allow Nissan to increase sustainability efforts in both the environmental front as well as the customer front as it aimed to better the vehicle purchasing experience.

HP: 'Phygitally' Connected

This project aimed to enhance the social interaction in virtual meetings through human centered design methods to create a stand alone product that enhanced the virtual meeting experience.
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Sign Language Tracker

Using OpenCV, mediapipe, and tensorflow, this project detects gestures in ones hand that resemble those in the sign language alphabet. The end goal is to see the sign language words per minute speed of the user to encourage the growth and understanding of the language.
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BUTLR

BUTLR is a new kind of planner that aims to revolutionize the way people plan and reach their goals, tasks, and grow healthy habits. Using advanced machine learning algorithms, BUTLR actively learns the user's habits and schedule to provide personalized planning and goal-setting solutions.

Machine learning study of boiling under gravity

Machine Learning: Gravitational Effects on Boiling

Used machine learning to explore the interplay of gravity and Marangoni effects during boiling of a water/2-propanol mixture for a range of gravity acceleration conditions.
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Photovoltaic Solar Cell Neural Network

Modeled an artificial neural network to study the performance characteristics of solar photovoltaic cells
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Boiler Modeling Neural Network

Using an artificial neural network to accurately model a the electricity output of a boiler that captures incident solar rays by an array of heliostats.
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Calorie Tracker

A project aimed at ensuring proper and methodological weight loss through the act of tracking meals, positive patterns in a user friendly environment created using Python.

Scissor Lift

A scissor lift that was aimed to familiarize creators with additive and subtractive manufacturing methods like that of 3D printing, lathe operations, mill operations, and other metal working tools. Ultimately held 6 kg with less than 3 millimeters of deflection.
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The Right Left

The right left is a sensor based system that was created during a 24-hour hackathon that tackles the dreaded unprotected left hand turns. This system tracked the speed of oncoming traffic and would use pre-measured data to inform the driver.

Fermii

An iOS based application that would allow users to know when and where their fellow classmates would be studying the same material. This would encourage people to work with one another and learn through teaching. Not only would one benefit from learning from one another, but would be rewarded for it too.

RECOGNITIONS

Future Leaders Academy

Selected as 1 of 40 students to attend this leadership development convention hosted by ExxonMobil.

HSF Scholar and Entreprenuership Attendee

Recognized as a HSF Scholar by being a part of the 6% that applied and rewarded a scholarship.

Spectrum Scholar

Selected as 1 of 20 students to receive a scholarship for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Toyota Scholar

1 of 2 students to be receive a scholarship for their involvement in the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Designer | Maker | Mechanical Engineer