University of Washington · PhD Student

Dylan Arius Harootunian

PhD Student & Graduate Research Assistant, Civil & Environmental Engineering
intelligent Urban Transportation Systems (iUTS) Lab, advised by Prof. Xuegang (Jeff) Ban

I work where automation, sensing, and transportation systems meet. After working as a robotics engineer in the semiconductor industry, I'm now studying how intelligent and automated systems can make real-world transportation networks safer, more efficient, and more multimodal.

CV / Resume Email me LinkedIn

Current work

Research at the University of Washington

intelligent Urban Transportation Systems (iUTS) Lab

I'm a PhD student and graduate research assistant in the iUTS Lab at the University of Washington, advised by Prof. Xuegang (Jeff) Ban. The lab develops modeling, simulation, and data tools for urban traffic systems, including dynamic networks with connected and automated vehicles and traffic-state estimation from mobile sensing data.

Program
Ph.D., Civil & Environmental Engineering (Transportation)
Lab
intelligent Urban Transportation Systems (iUTS)
Advisor
Prof. Xuegang (Jeff) Ban

UW iUTS Lab × Seattle DOT · Ongoing

A digital twin of downtown Seattle

Working with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to build a traffic digital twin of downtown Seattle: a simulation model of the street network that can be used to test operational changes before they happen on real streets. One focus is how street closures during the 2026 FIFA World Cup matches affect traffic and mobility downtown.

  • Digital twin
  • Traffic simulation
  • Special-event operations
  • SDOT

Selected work

Projects

Transportation & civil engineering · Santa Clara University

Traffic operations

Traffic simulation & adaptive signal control

Building SUMO simulations and testing dynamic signal-control strategies for congestion and multimodal flow.

  • SUMO
  • Signal control

Systems analysis

Autonomous mobility systems

Exploring the system-level effects of automation on transit, safety, and sustainability.

  • AVs
  • Transit

Robotics & embedded systems · University of California, Santa Cruz

Video + code

9-axis IMU setup & calibration

Calibrating the accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope on a microcontroller-driven rig.

  • Sensing
  • Calibration

Industry

Robotics engineering at Applied Materials

Robotics Engineer, Applied Materials

I worked on wafer-handling robotics for advanced semiconductor manufacturing tools. My focus was integrating sensors into automated teaching methods, which let a robot find and calibrate its handoff positions at each process station, all under vacuum and without manual adjustment.

  • Sensor integration for auto-teach: brought sensing hardware into the robot teaching process so station positions could be measured and corrected automatically inside vacuum chambers.
  • Multidisciplinary project leadership: managed a project spanning mechanical, electrical, software, and process engineering, coordinating teams from early concept through integration and validation on the tool.
  • Systems engineering: defined requirements, managed interfaces between subsystems, weighed design trade-offs, and planned testing to make sure the full system worked together on the tool.

Making automated systems work reliably in a constrained physical environment is the same kind of problem I now study in transportation networks.

  • Vacuum robotics
  • Sensor integration
  • Auto-teach & calibration
  • Systems engineering
  • Project management

Patent

U.S. Patent 12,480,761 B2: High temperature auto teach calibration disc

Inventors: Dylan Arius Harootunian, Damon K. Cox · Assignee: Applied Materials, Inc. · Issued November 2025

A mechanically based robotic calibration method for high-temperature semiconductor processing chambers. It compensates for thermal expansion to improve wafer placement accuracy during automated transfer.

Read the issued patentPDF

Background

Education & experience

Education

  1. Ph.D., Civil & Environmental Engineering
    University of Washington In progress
  2. M.S., Civil Engineering
    Santa Clara University
  3. B.S., Robotics Engineering, Electrical Engineering minor
    University of California, Santa Cruz

Experience

  1. Graduate Research Assistant
    iUTS Lab, University of Washington Downtown Seattle digital twin with SDOT
  2. Robotics Engineer
    Applied Materials Sensor-based auto-teach for vacuum wafer-handling robots · Systems engineering & project lead · 1 issued U.S. patent

Get in touch

Contact

I'm happy to talk about research collaborations, transportation and automation, or robotics.