Kien Pham · portfolio
RC glider on the meadow at UC Santa Cruz
Mechanical engineer

Kien Pham

An RC fan car, drone mapping, GPU kernels, model compression, and robotics programs in rural Vietnam.

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01 · GPU kernels · ML systems

FlashAttention, from scratch

Seventeen CUDA kernels across four GPU architectures, T4 to NVIDIA's flagship B300. A roofline model names the limiting factor before any code; every claim is measured, and the honest misses are on the record.

17
CUDA kernels
4
architectures
8–16×
vs SDPA
Open project →
02 · Senior project · aerodynamics

Modeling RC Fan Cars

The Brabham BT46B F1 fan car, recreated at RC scale. A 3D-printed vacuum tray seals the underbody while a fan pulls air out: ~5 lb of measured static downforce, roughly the car's own weight.

~5 lb
static downforce
+50%
corner speed
−10%
straight-line
Open project →
03 · Environmental engineering · Concord, MA

Multispectral mapping of Concord's wetlands

A Green Seed Fund project: automated biweekly DJI Mavic 3M surveys over 25+ acres of wetlands. The imagery surfaced sulfate-driven weed growth, traced to a river running 4× typical lead and sulfate levels.

$5,000+
seed funding
25+
acres mapped
4×
sulfate anomaly
Open project →
04 · ML research · UC Santa Cruz SIP

Sconce: end-to-end model compression

An AutoML package that prunes and quantizes deep networks with minimal human intervention. Across six CNNs: 72–75% less memory, 84–94% fewer parameters, 2.8× faster inference on CUDA.

84–94%
params removed
2.8×
faster inference
6
CNNs tested
Open project →
05 · STEM outreach · Da Nang & Ben Tre, Vietnam

Bridging STEM disparities in rural Vietnam

Robotics and English at FPT Hope School in Da Nang; reverse osmosis water technology and solar-powered builds at Vinh Hoa Elementary in Ben Tre. Hands-on projects, taught in person, growing every summer.

50+
students (2026)
$1,000+
raised for water
20+
scholarships
Open project →
06 · Flight · UC Santa Cruz & Da Nang

RC gliders & FPV quads

Co-led the SIP RC Plane Club at UC Santa Cruz: 40+ members, crowdfunded gliders, flight testing on the meadow. The FPV quads I tune in BetaFlight shot the footage flying behind this card.

40+
club members
10+ hrs
flight time
QAV-S 2 · Pavo20
quad rigs
Open project →
About

Engineer from Ho Chi Minh City

I build RC fan cars, map wetlands by drone, write GPU kernels, compress neural networks, and teach robotics in rural Vietnam every summer. I also race go-karts competitively. The footage on this page is mine.

now
Tufts University · Class of 2030
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, CS minor
skills
CAD, 3D printing, CUDA, C++, PyTorch, microcontrollers, drone software
Kien Pham
Kien Pham
Contact

Let's build things

Open to internships and collaborations across hands-on engineering, robotics, and ML systems.

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Kien Pham · every number on this site is a measured figure