Martian Engineering - Hard Problems, Modern Solutions

TEAM MEMBERS

Luke Champine

network protocols cryptography

Luke is a 3rd-generation programmer specializing in cryptography, networking protocols, and performance optimization. Since dropping out of college to co-found Sia, a leading cloud storage cryptocurrency, he has worked across all layers of the stack, from ASIC mining firmware to JavaScript frontends; TCP multiplexing to distributed consensus; vectorized assembly to novel Merkle tree research, and more. He treats programming as an end in itself, and outside of work he enjoys tinkering with a new language designed for competitive programming.

Jacob Lyles

cryptography machine learning product engineering

Jacob is a versatile product engineer with over a decade of experience building secure systems and developer teams. He's an original author of the Glacier Protocol, a widely adopted standard for Bitcoin cold storage, and previously developed Bitcoin inheritance solutions and wealth security tools at Casa. He specializes in bringing new products to market, including the first mobile app at Coursera. He has degrees in Computer Science specializing in Machine Learning (UCSD) and Mathematics & Economics (Wake Forest).

Brian Bulag

machine learning data science

Brian's experience includes computational biology research and machine learning, particularly with kernel methods on social science data within The Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard. He holds degrees in Biology and Philosophy from Stony Brook University, and is an avid Category Theory enthusiast.

Phil Galebach

data engineering full-stack development AI optimization

Phil is a data-focused technologist with a career spanning statistician, senior data engineer, business intelligence manager, digital health COO, and AI optimization specialist. Phil has a particular passion for entrepreneurial work, founding his first business while at Harvard.

Since diving headfirst into LLMs, he has worked extensively across the AI stack: from agents and RAG systems to MCPs and workflow automation; database optimizations to full-stack development; healthcare IT systems to digital marketing platforms. His recent focus centers on redesigning our relationship with computers through AI-powered business optimizations. He's worked extensively with heavily regulated enterprises, startups and the USG.

Eric Helal

AI systems legal tech distributed systems

Eric builds production AI workflows for regulated environments and hard-mode enterprise constraints. Before joining Martian, he shipped firmwide tools for a national law firm—Word add-ins, vector/RAG services, and serverless document-analysis pipelines—that displaced costly vendors while improving speed and consistency.

Earlier, he spent two years leading Urbit-native development at Quartus, taught Hoon, and bridged strict functional backends with modern React frontends. He holds a J.D. from Chicago-Kent and has spent a decade turning messy, cross-departmental requirements into reliable software used in the real world. Off the clock, he mainlines horror and weird fiction and still appreciates the discipline learned from a past life in weight rooms and wrenching on parts counters.

Rikard Hjort

decentralized finance blockchain security

Rikard is a security auditor and DeFi developer who's spent the last five years securing a variety of protocols with billions of dollars worth of assets under management and led various auditing teams with a dozen employees. He previously worked on formal verification based audits and tools at Runtime Verification, Inc. and as a lead security researcher for Spearbit, one of the leading cryptocurrency and DeFi auditing organizations. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Chalmers University of Engineering, Sweden.

~mopfel-winrux

embedded systems machine learning

~mopfel-winrux's previous experience includes processor development and positions at NASA and Lockheed Martin Research & Development. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech.