Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1053050
24 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2018 Feature Interview by Andy Shaughnessy I-CONNECT007 The best ideas in the electronics industry improve the quality of our lives. At Altium- Live, I ran into Tamara Jovanovic, a new PCB designer and junior electrical engineer with Happiest Baby, a Los Angeles-based company that makes smart beds that can protect babies from crib death. After joking that I save the world from dangling participles while she's saving babies, I asked Tamara to tell us more about smart baby beds, and how she got into PCB design in the first place. Andy Shaughnessy: Tamara, you are a brand- new designer and a freshly minted EE. How did you wind up being a circuit board designer? Tamara Jovanovic: I went to college at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and I just graduated in May. I was looking for a job and was lucky enough to get an interview with Happiest Baby. I'd heard of them before, and I know about their CEO, Dr. Harvey Karp, who is amazing. He's a very famous pediatrician, and I guess they liked me during the interview so here I am. Shaughnessy: Do you have an EE degree? Jovanovic: Yes, I graduated in electrical engi- neering with a minor in applied math. I was a rower in college too, so I did rowing and engi- neering. It was an interesting four years, but it was worth it. Shaughnessy: When you were in school, did you know that you wanted to be a circuit board designer? If not, what was your original plan? Jovanovic: The plan was to study electrical engineering. I am actually from Serbia, so I only came here four years ago when I was 18. I didn't know anything about PCBs until my junior year of college. I wish my school offered more courses on it, but they don't. I started getting into it a little bit on my own. Once I got my job, it's something that they expected me to do, so I have to get better at it. Shaughnessy: Does your company use Altium tools? Jovanovic: Exactly, we use their tools to design and evaluate PCBs for our products. Shaughnessy: Your company makes safe baby beds that keep infants from having SIDS and problems like that? New Grad Designs PCBs for Smart Baby Beds Tamara Jovanovic