Tondra completed her undergraduate education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), where she pursued dual degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering with a minor in computer science.  She also participated in the University and Departmental Honors programs.  During the final year of her electrical engineering program, she designed and built a Micromouse robot for her Senior Design project.  She and her partner were winners at numerous local and regional competitions, including the IEEE Region 6 Micromouse Competition and the Nevada NASA Space Grant Student Paper Competition.

Tondra graduated from UNLV summa cum laude  She was awarded the 2005 UNLV Undergraduate Regents' Scholar Award, the highest academic honor given to one undergraduate student each year.  She was a recipient of the Honors Medallion and the Outstanding Senior Award from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.   in May 2005 and was the Commencement Speaker.

In Fall 2006, Tondra began her Ph.D. program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).  Having developed a keen interest in the issues of equity and diversity in math, science, and engineering education in the United States, she is pursuing science education for her graduate studies.  She was awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.  After earning her doctorate, Tondra would like to become a university professor. 

Tondra attributes her success to hard work and the support of her family.  In her spare time, Tondra enjoys volunteering, reading, writing, cross-stitching, and cooking.  (A long-time vegetarian, Tondra likes to think she has finally mastered the art of baking the perfect egg-less chocolate-chip cookie.)

From 2001 to 2005 I attended University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), and majored in Computer Engineering with a minor in Applied Mathematics.  During my time at UNLV I was very active in many on campus organizations.  In 2004 I served as the recording secretary for Tau Beta Pi and the vice-president for the student chapter of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).  In 2004 I was elected to the presidency of both IEEE and TBP.  I was also appointed the president of the Phi Kappa Phi organization as a result of having the highest undergraduate GPA (4.0) in my class at UNLV.

As a senior, fellow colleague Tondra De and I participated in the IEEE Micromouse competition, where we co-designed a miniature robot to autonomously navigate and solve mazes.  Tondra and I won the SW region competition and finished second in the western competition. We also co-authored the wining IEEE paper, titled “A New Approach to Maze Searching and Solving Techniques for Small Autonomous Mobile Robots.”  In my senior year I was selected as a Tau Beta Phi fellow, a lifetime appointment to an elite selection of engineers.  There are only 35 students across all engineering disciplines nationally selected for this honor each year.  I graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2005 and received the Outstanding Senior Engineering Student of the Year, an honor awarded by the UNLV Engineering Department annually.

I am currently a third year PhD student at Stanford University.  Over the past two years here at Stanford I have completed my Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering with a 3.8 GPA and began work on my doctoral degree.  I have thus far done research on spin-valve biosensor interfaces and data acquisition. This work aims to design an integrated solution for spin-valve biosensor arrays.  These sensors detect magnetic nanolabels attached to biological samples (currently proteins and DNA fragments) using the giant magnetoresistive effect (GMR).  This detection principle has potential for much higher sensitivity than current methods.  The goal of this research is to integrate all of the necessary components in the signal path and the analog to digital converter (ADC) into a single integrated circuit (IC).