Robert Calhoun
Principal Engineer at SoundThinking (formerly ShotSpotter)
Oberlin, Ohio, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolRobert Calhoun is a Principal Engineer and co-founder of SoundThinking (formerly ShotSpotter) with over two decades of experience building real-time acoustic detection and location systems for public safety. He leads the Detection Team responsible for both backend source-location and AI/ML classification algorithms as well as embedded Linux sensor software, blending signal processing, numerical optimization, and secure IoT engineering. Holder of eight U.S. patents—seven in gunshot detection—and trained as a materials scientist (PhD, MIT), he brings uncommon cross-domain expertise from magnetic materials and electroplating to modern distributed systems. A practical proponent of AWS managed services for secure, scalable architectures, he also contributes kernel and Yocto layers publicly on GitHub that reflect hands-on embedded systems work. Based in Oberlin, Ohio, he balances deep research rigor with startup product focus and occasional surprising impact in adjacent fields (his electroplating patent influenced semiconductor Damascene processes).
11 years of coding experience
1 year of employment as a software developer
Ph. D., Metallurgy, Ph. D., Metallurgy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stackoverflow
4,983reputation
809kreached
89answers
4questions
sql
top-5%
csv
top-5%
sql-server
top-5%
database-connection
top-5%
Github Skills (90)
libsndfile10
elasticsearch10
editor10
rest10
search-engine10
sound-files10
electron10
typescript10
java10
visual-studio-code10
microsoft10
tsql9
modular9
sql9
csv9
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
ShotSpotter/buildroot
Feb 2022 - Jun 2026
Contributions:17 pushes, 8 branches in 4 years 4 months
ShotSpotter/xmos_usb_mems_interface
May 2022 - May 2026
XMOS based MEMS microphone array to USB interface for 16 microphones
Contributions:39 pushes, 12 branches, 4 tags in 4 years 1 month
arraymicrophonesmicrophonelinuxusb
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