Darren Brown
Professional engineer — industrial automation and controls
dbrown.gm@gmail.comMaryland, USALinkedIn
Experience
2022–Present
Staff Automation and Controls Engineer
Cellares
Cellares builds the Cell Shuttle, an enclosed system that manufactures 16 cell therapies in parallel using bioprocessing instruments, six-axis robots on servo-driven rails, and refrigerated storage with servo-controlled carousels. I was instrumental in the design of the machine as a whole and have worked on every part of it at one point or another. I now lead and mentor other engineers alongside core library and architecture work, all of it under GMP validation.
South San Francisco, California
2016–2022
Research and Development Engineer
Intralox
Intralox makes advanced material handling equipment that is largely targeted toward the e-commerce industry. I worked to make these machines operate faster, more reliably, and safer.
Baltimore, Maryland
2008–2016
Instrumentation and Controls Engineer
Chicago Bridge and Iron (CB&I)
I started out as a mechanical engineer designing flat bottom oil storage tanks but found instrumentation and controls much more interesting. I worked four major contracts in the liquefied natural gas market specifying instruments, designing the control systems, and living and working onsite to commission the plant.
Savannah, Georgia · British Columbia · Reading, Pennsylvania · Newcastle, Australia
2005–2008
Graduate Research
University of Delaware
I worked in the Department of Mechanical Engineering's Fuel Cell Research Laboratory to optimize performance of the University's first hydrogen powered PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cell bus.
Newark, Delaware
2003–2005
Undergraduate Research
University of Delaware
I worked with the agriculture department to study the feasibility of measuring chicken embryo temperature using ultrasound. I also helped invent a more reliable spinach harvester.
Newark, Delaware
Education
2005–2008
Master's Degree
University of Delaware
Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering
2001–2005
Bachelor's Degree
University of Delaware
Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics
Certifications
2016
Professional Engineer
State of Maryland
Active
2024
ISA/IEC 62443 Cybersecurity Fundamentals Specialist
International Society of Automation
Valid through 2027
2019
Certified Machinery Safety Expert (CMSE)
TÜV Nord
Lapsed 2026
Expertise
Control systems
Many years of experience with the design, purchasing, installation, programming, and commissioning of industrial control systems for both process control and high-speed/high-precision machine control. That extends to the operator-facing layer — HMI and SCADA screens, multi-workstation architectures, redundant display servers, and process historians.
Operational cybersecurity
Experience with IEC 62443 risk analysis and system certification for industrial control systems, and currently leading the effort to secure an automated cell therapy manufacturing platform to that standard.
Instrumentation
Very capable at specifying, validating, installing, configuring, and testing instrumentation for both the process industry (temperature, pressure, flow) and machinery industry (product detection/measuring, pneumatics, precise motion). Also process analyzers — chromatography, tunable laser diode, sulfur, moisture, and oxygen — and fire and gas detection.
Safety
Well versed in process safety including IEC 61508 HAZOP/LOPA analysis, SIS design and commissioning, SRS creation, and SIF analysis and verification, on triple-redundant and safety PLC platforms alike. Machine safety design to NFPA 79.
Electrical design
Control panel and machine electrical design to NFPA 70/79 and UL 508, including specification of electrical loads and supervision of electrical and instrumentation subcontractors through installation. Also printed circuit board design.
Industrial robotics
Extensive experience with high-speed motion and six-axis robots.
Simulation and test automation
Simulation and automated testing for systems that are slow or expensive to exercise physically — vehicle drivetrain simulation in graduate research, and more recently an automated testing platform for cell therapy manufacturing.
Skills
| Control platforms | Beckhoff TwinCAT and hardware, including motion; Stäubli VAL3; Siemens TIA Portal; Rockwell Studio, Designer, Logix; Codesys; Invensys Foxboro I/A; Bristol Babcock ControlWave |
| Safety and detection systems | Beckhoff TwinSAFE, Triconex Trident, ICS Triplex AAdvance, Allen-Bradley GuardLogix and GuardPLC; Det-Tronics Eagle Quantum Premier fire and gas detection |
| HMI and SCADA | Ignition Perspective, Foxboro FoxView, ICONICS GraphWorx, Allen-Bradley PanelView; process historians and redundant display servers |
| Networks and fieldbuses | EtherCAT, Ethernet/IP, Profinet, DeviceNet, CAN, Modbus, IO-Link |
| Programming and analysis | IEC 61131-3 Structured Text, Python, Matlab/Simulink, LabVIEW, Fortran, Basic; machine learning with convolutional neural networks and multilayer perceptrons |
| Process control | PID loop design and tuning, centrifugal compressor surge avoidance |
| Process analyzers | Gas chromatographs, tunable laser diode CO₂, lead-acetate tape sulfur, oscillating quartz moisture, oxygen, and hydrogen sulfide |
| Regulated manufacturing | GMP production, computerized system validation |
| Codes and standards | NFPA 70/79, UL 508, IEC 61508/61511, IEC 62443 |