About
Hey, I’m Dandi Desta, a junior at Harvard studying electrical engineering. I’m originally from Ethiopia, and my family fled to Nairobi during a period of political instability. That move changed a lot of things, but it didn’t change the one constant: I’ve always been obsessed with how systems work, especially electronics.
Growing up, resources were limited, so I learned the only way I could: by building with whatever was around. I scavenged broken electronics and toy parts from trash piles and repair shops, pulled them apart, and rebuilt them into small projects like improvised RC cars, little motor rigs, and DIY control setups that taught me power, signals, and failure the hard way. Most of what I learned came from experimenting, reading anything I could get my hands on, and refusing to stop when the first version didn’t work.
I also became the person people called when a phone wouldn’t charge or a computer wouldn’t boot. I’d troubleshoot hardware issues, chase software problems, and keep going until I could explain what broke and why. That habit never left. Whether it’s FPGAs, embedded systems, or research builds, I’m still the person who likes the messy middle of debugging and turning “it should work” into “it works.”
Today I get to do that at a higher level: building FPGA labs, working on an observatory camera array, and researching memory for accelerators. These are places where reliability actually matters and the constraints are real, not perfect lab conditions. I’m drawn to projects that sit at the boundary of hardware and software, especially when they have to run in the real world.
Giving back is a big part of my story, too. I’ve worked as an interpreter and translator with UNHCR, supported immigration-related casework for the Canadian Embassy, and worked with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), helping people navigate high-stakes conversations when they don’t have the language access to be heard. I speak four languages (Amharic, Oromo, Swahili, and English), mostly because life forced me to move, adapt, and learn fast. As a kid, I watched how hard it is to advocate for yourself when nobody can understand you, or when nobody wants to. That’s part of what drives me today: using communication as a tool for dignity, and being a steady voice for people who deserve one.
Outside of engineering, I stay active. I play football and basketball because it’s the fastest way for me to reset, and yes, Ronaldo is the GOAT (argue with the wall, not me). I also run a lot, partly because it keeps me grounded, and partly because long-distance running feels like home. It’s in the roots: patience, rhythm, and showing up every day.
Skills
Things I’ve used on the projects described on this site, grouped by area.
- RTL and digital design
- SystemVerilog, Verilog, VHDL; FSM and datapath design; clock-domain crossings; Xilinx 7-series primitives (IOBUF, BUFG/BUFGCE, MMCM, DSP48, XADC)
- FPGA and verification
- Vivado synthesis, implementation and timing reports; SystemVerilog testbenches; cocotb; Opal Kelly FrontPanel host interfaces; board bring-up and test stations
- Embedded systems
- Arduino and Raspberry Pi; I²C sensors (BME280, TMP117, TSL2561); servo and limit-switch control; serial links to a host
- Circuits, PCB and EDA
- LTspice, Proteus; KiCad schematic and board formats; design-rule and manufacturing-output checks (Sirkit)
- Computer architecture
- Accelerator and memory-hierarchy modeling: AccelForge, hwcomponents plug-ins (Accelergy project), MemSysExplorer, CACTI
- Programming
- Python (NumPy, Matplotlib, OpenCV, Astropy), C/C++, TypeScript, MATLAB, Git, Linux
- Lab
- Oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, bench supplies; wiring harnesses and hardware debugging