IOL Star Winners - 2017

August 2017

Kyle Ouellette

Kyle joined IP in summer of 2015 and has proved to be a valuable asset to the IP industry by taking on a development role working with INTACT software. He has taken an active role in being part of an agile development team and has contributed greatly to the team’s success. Kyle is also a great mentor and teacher who will take the time to sit down with fellow employees to explain something in great detail. When faced with an issue Kyle will be determined to find a solution and exhaust all available resources. He is always willing to volunteer his time and has given countless IoT demos to the numerous tour groups the lab has. He has taken on the role of TA for this summers networking class, is an active participate in the mentor program and always takes advantage of what the lab has to offer. Kyle deserves to be recognized for commitment to the lab and a deserving of an IOL Star.

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Timothy Harry

Tim joined the UNH-IOL DSL Team in April 2015, and has worked his way from tester to developer to researcher. Most recently, Tim has gone above and beyond in his work to enable automation and control of the Spirent Test Center within Test Sentinel, and has applied this new knowledge to research work on the impacts of physical layer impairments to higher layer traffic and modeling that behavior within NetEm. Tim has continuously juggled his work, along with training new testers and helping out with advanced DSL and Gfast testing when needed. Tim has approached all of these projects with a positive attitude, willingness to learn, and most importantly, a willingness to repeat the measurements many times, to ensure accuracy and understanding of the system under test. He is always willing to stay late to get the job done, and works hard to ensure results are the best possible results. Tim's work is a credit upon the UNH-IOL.,

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Jeremy Plsek

Jeremy has been a part of the IOL since the summer of 2013, as an intern in our Digital Living Network Alliance certification group, and has progressed to our Open Fabrics Alliance logo group and our Avnu Alliance certification group. From his beginnings, Jeremy has been a continuously rising star within the lab. Jeremy has quickly risen to become an expert in test and script development, leveraging his programming skills and networking knowledge to assist his team members and rapidly achieve the team’s goals. Beyond vendor testing and assisting his fellow students, Jeremy has also been invaluable in our STEM efforts, developing and teaching a Networking class to high school students. His positive attitude and cooperative spirit, matched with his programming skill set a shining example for all IOL employees. The distinctive accomplishments of Jeremy Plsek reflect credit upon himself and the InterOperability Laboratory.

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Jason Sisk

Jason works in the Baseband Physical Layer area primarily and is going into his Sr. year in the UNH EE program. In general terms Jason is a "go to" guy for almost anything that needs to be done quickly and carefully. He started by testing storage technologies but has grown into Ethernet testing, training our new employees, and has also joined the small group of Automotive Ethernet technicians as the primary electrical conformance tester. He upholds the UNH-IOL values by intelligently communicating to vendors on matters that are very complex and has been helping out in training meetings. Jason also went above and beyond recently by developing the Electrical Engineering introductory materials for the STEM "Watchdogs" hacking project. This project is used for the first day of Techcamp, and this year he also led the training on that activity for two weeks. This project is also going to be used for the non-summer high school interns at the lab. In addition to meeting the UNH-IOL requirements the materials he created we so comprehensive that a local middle school teacher is using the materials as a baseline for their activities.

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Eric Smath

Eric has dedicated his time to be a great resource to employees within the IP area. He has quickly become the “go-to” person for any testing questions that come up from new hires. As noticed by his peers if you’re looking for Eric you will most likely find him with a chair pulled up to another employee’s desk helping them with something. He is always willing to help explain concepts and help solve problems. Eric has been a great help with getting new hires in IP up to speed with testing. Eric was recently moved to the INTACT development team and made a point to bring up that he still wanted to help employees on the testing teams during his review. This shows Eric’s dedication to helping others. Eric’s commitment has been acknowledged by peers on numerous occasions and many fellow employees credit Eric with helping them learn something new.

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January 2017

Trevor Maddaus

Trevor Maddaus is the perfect candidate for an IOL Star Award. Trevor has been a helping hand in Home Networking Testing Services aiding others with testing. Along the way, he has also taught others about DOCSIS, tftp, cable modems and more. He worked closely on a project for validating security on Home Gateway’s by developing test cases and implementing the testing. Trevor is a model employee who not only elevates himself, but also elevates everyone around him.

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Brandon Smith

Brandon has been a part of the IOL since the summer of 2013, as an intern, then joining the Avnu certification group July 2014. From his beginnings there, Brandon has been a continuously rising star within the lab. Brandon has quickly risen to become an expert in PTP, and a lead developer in the Avnu Certification test tool, vIOLett, provided to over 40 different companies for in-house use. Brandon keeps testing on track, and development moving forward, all while balancing a full academic load and working with a startup web company.

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Melissa Steinberg

Melissa began working in the Open Networking Testing Services May, 2016. In her short time, Melissa has affected the group in many positive ways. She has provided rock solid support during our plugfests, usually starting early and ending late. Melissa has engaged with our partner companies to expand the portfolio of tools we use for our testing. In addition, her organizational skills she brings to the group has helped overall operations improve. She is always eager to learn new skills allowing the group to continuously push forward and is great to work with, she never turns down a challenge.

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Maxwell Renke

Maxwell has been working at the lab for over five years and has recently received his Master of Science in Computer Science. As a GRA for the last two years, Max has been leading the Ethernet Switching Protocols group to new heights. He was instrumental in the development and release of ESP’s first set of software applications and has been a mentor to new hires, given countless tours, and has a work ethic that sets him apart. This is Max’s second IOL star which puts him in rare company.

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Pirro Shtino

Pirro started working at the UNH-IOL in March 2015 as the Webcom assistant and he quickly distinguished himself as someone with a passion for learning everything about what we do at the lab. He is also a dependable volunteer for STEM activities, teaching a Python class to middle schoolers and volunteering to help out with Techcamp as well. Recently he has been digging deep into the lab’s database internals and helping write the code responsible for a slate of improvements this summer. Finally he is always available to answer questions for new employees to help them get quickly up to speed. Pirro has been a great representative of the UNH-IOL’s culture and values.

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