RealLIST Engineers 2024: Meet 15 Baltimoreans keeping the city’s tech community on track

Technical.ly’s RealLIST Engineers 2024 is underwritten by Comcast. The list was independently reported and not reviewed by Comcast before publication.

Even if the CEOs, presidents and directors get most of the attention, we know who really makes a tech ecosystem work. 

It’s the people behind the scenes, the ones writing code, researching, developing next-gen applications, exploring the latest innovations, tinkering with complex mechanics and building the architecture that underpins innovation industries. 

Of course, executives are sometimes part of this group, too. But it takes a special kind of technologist to step beyond the software or hardware and make a more interpersonal impact on their world. 

For the past five years, Technical.y has recognized these people for the leaders they are. Whether they serve on nonprofit boards, mentor junior colleagues, organize scene-consolidating meetups or do anything else to build up their communities (however they define them), we call them RealLIST Engineers. 

The 15 accomplished individuals from metro Baltimore below join 81 others we’ve honored since 2020, when we first introduced this series across our markets to recognize those professionals who match technical prowess with other work to strengthen the cities and regions in which they work. 

Like in prior years, we compiled this list from a mix of our prior coverage, research, personal outreach and your nominations. 

You can check out our features from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019 to read about all the local folks we’ve spotlighted before, but first scroll down to meet the impressive members of Baltimore’s 2024 RealLIST Engineers.

Know someone who deserves honoring? You can nominate contenders for this annual feature and our RealLIST Startups or Connectors all year round. 

Sabrina Thompson

Girl in Space Club, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Nearly 15 years of designing trajectories and orbits for NASA’s Greenbelt-based Goddard Space Flight Center helped Thompson realize that modern space suits kept female astronauts from making history. Thompson used her time in the SEW BROMO accelerator to develop internationally renowned space suits for women via her Girl in Space Club. 

The Baltimore-area aerospace engineer, whose company has since outfitted crews participating in various space mission simulations, also created the STEMulating Art program to promote STEM literacy (especially for girls and others underrepresented in the space ecosystem) through arts and crafts. 

Julian Loiacono

Baltimore Code and Coffee

Loiacono spent the eight years since he graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in a series of technical roles for such companies as Intel and Equinox. For one of his prior positions, as the head of research and development for Baltimore-based Bike Powered Events, he was instrumental in developing the Rainbow Rider, which lets users pedal a bike to power a light installation. 

In addition, Loiacono serves as the secretary of Baltimore Code and Coffee, a recurring meetup that routinely draws engineers and developers throughout the state to Baltimore for networking, workshops and collaboration. 

Cory Anotado

Pacdude Games, VidCon/Crown the Creators, Game Show Marathon, BuzzerBlog, Highwire Improv, Baltimore City LGBTQ Commission

Anotado’s brief viral fame as a contestant on “Jeopardy!” and GSN’s “The Chase” is just one of the many ways they’ve made a public and impactful career out of their numerous technical skills. His nominator highlighted a long career in creative direction that combines UX/UI design, web development and team leadership skills for employers like Unlock Health. They currently run Pacdude Games, which he founded to provide game show simulation software for private events, and serve as a programming associate for VidCon’s Crown the Creators tournament.

In addition, Anotado runs the nearly 20-year-old, game show-focused news site BuzzerBlog; and the Game Show Marathon, a broadcast that raises money for charities like Child’s Play. They also serve on the board of Baltimore-based improvisational comedy organization Highwire Improv and the City of Baltimore’s LGBTQ Commission. 

Yocheved Kopel

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory 

After completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering, Kopel now works at the university-affiliated Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel. There, she develops, tests and publishes research on both aerial and ground vehicles, including some relying on autonomous control. 

According to her nominator, the engineer also mentors SpiderBits and SpyderBytes, a pair of all-girls, APL-supported teams participating in robotics competitions through the youth STEM enrichment organization For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). 

“The teams are frequently recognized by FIRST for their impact on the community and have won four awards,” the nominator wrote. “Her tireless dedication to this program is inspiring a new generation of robotics engineers and scientists.”

Parissa Eggleston

Fearless

Eggleston, a 25-year industry veteran, has held various technical leadership positions at Inner Harbor-based digital services company Fearless since 2018. Her current work on the Woodlawn-based Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ eRegs and associated codebase is the latest in a string of federally contracted projects for which she led engineering teams. 

Beyond this work, which involved strengthening public-facing federal government platforms like Login.gov, created an internal group that offers the company’s other female technologists a safe space to share perspectives and seek guidance from one another. 

Will Miller

Midsummer Studios, Code in the Schools

A career spent working on high-profile video games like “Guitar Hero II” and “XCOM: Enemy Unknown” led Miller, a onetime gaming engineer for Baltimore County tentpole Firaxis Games, to helping establish Midsummer Studios in Hunt Valley earlier this year. The CTO of the new, $6 million-seeded video game company leads a team of developers creating a new life simulation game. He also uplifts local youth STEM enrichment as a board leader for Code in the Schools. 

Evan Kuo

Care Link

Despite completing his bachelor’s degree only this year, Kuo has already left his mark on the architecture of Baltimore’s tech scene. His nominator, 2023 RealLIST Engineer Valentine Okundaye, said that Kuo helped EcoMap Technologies’ data team solve a pressing automation issue — and did so as an intern. 

The Johns Hopkins alum, whose resume includes internships with Scene Health and GiveCampus, is currently setting up a nonprofit, under the working name Care Link, to help people working in harm reduction to network and share best practices. 

Casey Watts

Happy and Effective, Empathy in Tech, Ruby for Good, Baltimore Tech Meetup

Despite making an impact felt all the way to the DC metro area — one so strong that he ended up on last year’s DC RealLIST Connectors roster — Watts has made a mission of helping Baltimore’s tech ecosystem thrive. 

The technologist and former product manager for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services is a product manager for Ruby for Good, a provider of public service-minded software for nonprofits; the cofounder of Empathy in Tech, which advocates for compassionate frameworks in the innovation sector; founder of the consultancy Happy and Effective; and author of “Debugging Your Brain,” a book that uses software metaphors to teach psychological wellness.

Nominator and 2023 RealLIST Engineer Cornelius Hairston praised Watts’ work for the community, including maintaining and promoting meetups and the Baltimore Tech Slack channel. 

Kevin Kornegay

Morgan State University

Kornegay is the Eugene DeLoatch Endowed Professor in IoT at Morgan State, where he also leads the Cybersecurity Assurance and Policy Center for Academic Excellence. Through this work, Kornegay developed a reputation for leadership in electrical engineering and systems security, including via committee appointments for a variety of professional organizations and conferences. His nominator, a student at the historically Black university, said that he channels this passion into mentorship of other people of color pursuing engineering paths. 

Jeremy Neal

Test Double, Baltimore Black Techies Meetup

Neal’s work for Test Double, a software development consultancy for which he serves as a senior software consultant, came on the heels of multiple technical roles, including as a founding CTO of staffing platform Tribe. He remains embedded in the local world as a leader of the Baltimore Black Techies Meetup, for which he landed on our first-ever Baltimore RealLIST Connectors roundup.

“He has been passionate about worker-owned movements [and] cofounded multiple organizations that focused on scaling worker-owned co-operatives,” his nominator said. “A regular at Equitech Tuesday, Jeremy is always down to jump into a deep conversation about a range of [topics] including but not limited to technology, degrowth, spirits, music, relationships and Baltimore.” 

Tavon Harris

Verizon, The Emphatic Truth

This Baltimore-area network engineering and operations supervisor works with a team of engineers to improve the telecommunications giant’s reach in various parts of Maryland and the DC metro region. He also organizes an annual event at one of Verizon’s DC makerspaces, as part of a collaboration with Morgan State, that features a career panel and workshops on different technologies Verizon employs. 

Harris also operates The Emphatic Truth, which produces a blog, podcast and online community focused on STEM, professional development, mental health and Black community enrichment. 

Jason Michael Perry

“Thoughts on Tech and Things,” Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO)

Perry infuses his endless curiosity about emerging technologies into professional and service leadership throughout Baltimore. During his near-decade at Mindgrub, where he most recently held the CTO post, the New Orleans native led development of generative AI and other products for various clients while hosting showcases on products like the Vision Pro. He also brought his AI expertise and enthusiasm to a special project with the BSO, on whose board he serves. 

Perry continues to explore these topics in his weekly newsletter, “Thoughts on Tech and Things,” where he’s also subjected himself to deepfake experiments. Now that’s commitment.  

Gwen Greene

AiTech, Cybersecurity Association of Maryland, Inc. (CAMI), TEDCO

Greene’s professional career stretches back to the late-90s, when she interned with the White House’s Executive Office of the President and helped it prepare for potential Y2K systems crashes. After over a decade as a software engineer for Raytheon, she founded the Hanover-based cybersecurity company Applied Information Technology (AiTech) in 2011. The Bowie State alum still leads the company, where she has made hiring HBCU grads and women a priority. 

Greene carries these priorities into her service on the board of CAMI, a professional association and booster for the state’s robust cyber sector, and TEDCO’s Equitech Growth Commission. 

Ruthe Huang

Practical Intelligence, NAAAP Baltimore, From Prison Cells to PhD 

Armed with undergrad and master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins, the chief data scientist of Practical Intelligence has spent a large chunk of her career conducting data modeling, R Shiny application development and other technical data work for clients including Department of Defense affiliates. Huang also serves on the leadership team of the National Association of Asian American Professionals’ (NAAAP) Baltimore chapter and works with From Prison Cells to PhD as one of its programs’ SAT facilitator. 

Maria Sanchez

University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) 

Sanchez is a practice-focused professor in UMBC’s mechanical engineering department whose research interests include thermodynamics and the technical aspects of engineering education. She also directs the college’s Engineering and Computing Education Program and sits on the advisory board of its Center for Women in Technology.