Sara Johari — Mechanical Engineer

+ RECORD

Professional Experience

Staff Professional I

Gas Transmission System Inc. — a Kleinfelder Company

Aug 2022 — Current

Team leadership & QC: Led and trained an engineering team performing quality checks on DTE Op Diagram and Health Score submittals, managing the process end-to-end for 100% alignment with current standards.
Workflow optimization: Developed standardized symbols and presets for Op Diagram workflows, then scaled the tool team-wide — cutting average completion time by 67%.
Infrastructure design: Collaborated with major utility clients (PG&E, SDG&E, SMUD, NiSource, and others) to design and reconstruct natural gas and electrical infrastructure.
Scale of delivery: Designed 100,000+ feet of piping and executed 1,000+ tie-ins; engineered meter replacements for 5,000+ gas services.
Compliance: Performed MAOP validation and structural risk modeling per CFR 192.917, with a documentation rigor that carries directly into aerospace standards like DO-160G.
AI tooling: Optimized a Microsoft Azure-based AI tool (DIP) to process 16 documents/second, improving the speed and accuracy of data extraction.

MAOP Validation AutoCAD CFR 192.917 Azure AI

Project Engineer

Broadway Mechanical Contractors, Inc.

Aug 2021 — Aug 2022

Project delivery: Delivered four ground-up residential and hotel developments valued up to $15MM, managing full lifecycles from planning through execution — on time and under budget.
Design coordination: Built accurate engineering cost estimates for design-build and bid-spec projects and supervised cross-functional teams to protect design integrity.
Financial control: Negotiated change orders and validated invoices across a $15MM portfolio, maintaining strict budget adherence through schedule-of-values management.
Procurement: Ensured 100% material availability for complex mechanical systems through vendor management and technical review of sub-trade quotations.
Emergency response: Spearheaded recovery of a $5MM development during a flood event and project-manager absence — stood up real-time stakeholder communications, qualified on-site equipment for safety and throughput, reordered long-lead materials, and prevented a major schedule slip.

Change Orders Schedule of Values Vendor Management Risk Mitigation

Control Systems Engineer Intern

PHILD — Personal Hygiene Instant Liquid Dispenser, CSU Chico

2020 — 2021

Electromechanical design: Designed and manufactured low-voltage electromechanical systems and control components for a sustainable vending machine.
Systems integration: Performed structural sizing and stress analysis on component mounts; integrated a closed-loop system with stepper drivers, relays, and sensors.
PLC programming: Designed and built modular PLC systems and wrote software to automate the dispensing process.
Validation: Built automated test tools and ran Design of Experiments (DOE) to validate the system; analyzed multi-variable sensor data to optimize performance.
Rapid prototyping: Applied DFM/DFA and tolerance analysis to 3D-printed component replacements for scalable, lower-cost manufacturing.

PLC Stepper Drivers DOE 3D Printing

+ SELECTED WORK

Projects

From utility-scale infrastructure to bench-top mechatronics — a sample of what I've built and delivered.

01 — Utility Design Gas & Electric Pipeline Infrastructure

Natural gas pipeline tie-in installed along a residential property line

Mechanical Engineer (Staff Professional)

Worked across 10 projects with teams of 3–30 members for 8 major utility clients — PG&E, SDG&E, Southwest Gas, SMUD, DTE, NiSource, ALGC, NICOR, and the City of Mesa.

Designed gas and electric pipelines, compiled and sorted Cathodic Protection data sets for integrity management and the SMUD risk model, and performed initial MAOP validation for natural gas pipelines and regulator stations. Also trained and refined an AI document-extraction tool, improving its adaptability across document formats and domains.

AutoCAD MAOP Validation Cathodic Protection Risk Modeling

02 — Construction Management Ground-Up Residential & Hotel Developments

20-story high-rise residential building under design in San Francisco

$14M 20 floors · San Francisco

5M/M2 — High-Rise Residential

Plumbing, design-build delivery on a 20-story high-rise.

$15M 18 floors · Oakland

Marriott, Oakland

HVAC and plumbing, design-assist delivery on an 18-floor hotel.

$2.5M 3 stories · Palo Alto

Palo Alto Public Safety Building

Plumbing, plan & spec delivery on a 3-story public safety facility.

$2.5M 7 floors · San Francisco

78 Haight

Plumbing, plan & spec delivery on a 7-floor hotel.

03 — Control Systems & Machine Design Electromechanical Engineering

Completed PHILD vending machine prototype with tubing and refillable reservoirs

Aluminum extrusion frame and PLC wiring for the PHILD machine

+ CONTROL SYSTEMS ENGINEER INTERN

PHILD — Personal Hygiene Instant Liquid Dispenser

A single-nozzle vending machine that dispenses hygiene products into reusable bottles, cutting single-use plastic waste. Designed and built a modular PLC system from scope, prioritizing modularity so future iterations could integrate cleanly.

Modular PLC Stepper Motors Closed-Loop Control

Breadboard prototype of a digital piano using a binary-weighted DAC

Digital Piano — Binary-Weighted DAC

6-bit binary-weighted DAC driving a digital piano, built from three software stages: input handling, output, and DAC voltage calculation. Verified calculated output against measured voltage and used SysTick and edge-trigger interrupt service routines for timing.

DAC Interrupts Embedded C

Coffee Cannon mechanical design project poster showing shaft, bearing, and motor analysis

Coffee Cannon — Conical Burr Grinder

Mech 340 team design project: a coffee grinder with an adjustable conical burr. Sized the shaft, bearings, and motor against calculated torque and load requirements, then validated the design with stress-life analysis.

Shaft Design FEA DFM

Early hand-drawn concept sketch of the PHILD dispenser mechanism

PHILD — Concept Sketch

Where it started: an early hand sketch of the rotating-nozzle dispensing mechanism, before it became a working machine with four product reservoirs and a single dispensing portal.

Concept Design Mechanism Layout

04 — Research Materials & Sustainability

SEM imaging of spherically mono-dispersed silver nanoparticles

Silver Nanoparticle Extraction from Leaf Extract

Characterized silver nanoparticles synthesized from leaf extract using XRD (confirming FCC structure), EDS (detecting silver presence), SEM/TEM (confirming spherical, nano-scale particles), FTIR (surface chemistry), and XPS (confirming metallic silver). The approach points toward avoiding hazardous solvents in nanoparticle synthesis.

SEM / TEM XRD FTIR XPS

Gas chromatogram and mass spectrum from PHA biodegradation testing

Biodegradable Plastics Research

Researched polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biodegradation via anaerobic digestion, using gas chromatography to measure nitrogen, methane, and CO₂ produced as PHA samples broke down with an inoculum. The work feeds into a harder question: there's currently no standardized test for what makes a plastic legitimately "biodegradable."

Gas Chromatography PHA Anaerobic Digestion

+ BACKGROUND

About

I'm a mechanical and mechatronics engineer who likes systems that have to actually hold up — whether that's a gas pipeline rated to CFR 192.917, a $50MM portfolio of utility projects, or a PLC-driven machine I built on my kitchen table. My background spans heavy infrastructure and hands-on mechatronics, and I move comfortably between AutoCAD drawings and breadboard circuits.

Outside of work, I'm usually kickboxing, watching Formula 1, or out on a hike with my dog.

EDUCATION

B.S., Mechanical Engineering May 2021

B.S., Mechatronics Engineering, Minor in Computer Science May 2021

California State University, Chico

VOLUNTEER & LEADERSHIP

Secretary

SWE Phoenix Section — FY27 E-Board 2025 – Present

Elected Secretary on the FY27 SWE Phoenix Section Executive Board. Attended SWE25 National Conference (Oct 2025) as a Kleinfelder delegate and SWELocal San Jose (Feb–Mar 2025).

SWE (CSU Chico) — Ran Imagineer Day STEM workshops (solar-powered cars, rockets) for K–12 students across Butte County; assisted Intel's Engineering Ambassador Program workshops on 3D printing and soldering for middle schoolers.

LTC / SHPE / MAES — Best Member, 2019. Attended Regional and National SHPE Conventions; mentored incoming students on course planning and the transition to college.