Gregory Bales
I design experiments, build the hardware they require, and develop the inference methods that extract actionable insight from the resulting data. My work sits at the intersection of experimental system design, physiological and behavioural sensing, and quantitative modelling of human performance in operational environments.
My doctoral research at UC Davis combined neurophysiological measurement, behavioural analysis, and experimental platform development across three areas: real-time inference of operator trust from EEG-based brain connectivity signals, human performance and coordination during supervision of multi-robot systems, and the digitisation of human expertise in manual manufacturing tasks. This work was supported by NASA and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Before my doctoral research I spent over a decade in industry and independent practice across aerospace, defence, and applied engineering, including smart material actuator development, active vibration control, structural dynamics testing, and contract work scoping and delivering solutions for clients across multiple domains. That range means I can move from a research question to a working physical system, and from a client’s brief to a delivered result, without treating the hardware or the ambiguity as someone else’s concern.
I am looking for roles in research, systems engineering, or applied development where deep technical capability, experimental rigor, and the ability to build and measure real systems are what matter. If you are working on a hard problem at the intersection of sensing, inference, and human or machine performance, I would like to hear about it.
TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES
Physiological and Behavioral Sensing
Designing and deploying multimodal measurement systems including EEG, gaze, and motion capture to characterise human cognitive and physical state during complex task execution.
Real-Time Inference and State Estimation
Building signal processing pipelines and computational methods that translate raw sensor data into actionable estimates of operator state, system condition, and performance outcomes.
Experimental Platform Development
Designing and constructing the hardware, control systems, and integrated test environments that make rigorous human-machine experiments possible in realistic operational settings.
Electromechanical Systems and Applied Engineering
Developing precision actuators, vibration control systems, and sensing platforms for aerospace and industrial applications, from concept through prototype validation and field deployment.
Understanding how a system actually performs requires measuring it in conditions that matter, building the tools to do that well, and turning the resulting data into something actionable. That combination applies whether the system is an autonomous platform, a manufacturing process, a sensing array, or a human operator. The domain changes. The approach does not.
Selected Projects
The projects below span experimental research, platform development, and applied engineering. Each one required building something physical, measuring something difficult, or inferring something that was not directly observable. They are collected here as evidence of what that combination looks like in practice.
Applied Engineering and Contract Work
Before and alongside my research career I have designed and built electromechanical systems for demanding applications: piezoelectric and smart material actuators for aerospace vibration control, custom sensing platforms for experimental studies, and prototype systems supporting early-stage technology development. This is not background. It is part of the work.
