Meet the Team: Dr. Taofeek Orekan

Learn about our Chief Engineer’s extensive education and passion for community outreach

With a variety of disciplines and extensive knowledge of the field, the driven scientists and engineers behind TurboTrack, Sensatek’s real-time testing and monitoring system, are essential to our mission of helping OEMs improve reliability, increase performance and reduce costs.

Join us to learn more about one of our team members: Dr. Taofeek Orekan, Chief Engineer at Sensatek.

The Education of an Engineer

With extensive academic training and niche expertise, Dr. Taofeek Orekan is the talented Chief Engineer at Sensatek. Since joining Sensatek, Dr. Taofeek and the team have quickly advanced our innovative technology to where it stands today.

Dr. Taofeek’s knowledge and expertise stems from his extensive education as an electrical engineer. After earning his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Kennesaw State University, Dr. Taofeek went on to earn both his Master’s degree and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut. 

Early Innovation

While earning his PhD at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Taofeek developed a smart ocean energy system, which was a new type of underwater wireless power transfer technology that converted ocean wave energy into electricity. “I was actually one of the first to make a wireless connection with underwater ocean sensors. The vital part of the research was that the United States Navy ended up adopting the system for their usage,” shares Dr. Taofeek.

Dr. Taofeek’s research and development of a smart ocean energy system
while studying at the University of Connecticut was the first of its kind.

Honorable Recognitions and Accomplishments

After graduating with his PhD, Dr. Taofeek was honored to receive the prestigious Navy Stem Fellowship in 2018 for his outstanding performance in Naval Science and Technology research. With this fellowship, he tutored and provided mentorship to undergraduates interested in pursuing graduate degrees at the University of Connecticut. He also assisted faculty with administrative tasks and undergraduate Navy Stem curriculum development.
Dr. Taofeek was also recognized with the Connecticut IEEE-PES Outstanding Engineer of the Year Award in 2018. “That was a big deal for me because Connecticut has a lot of competition with Yale and all of New England, so for me to be able to get that award was a huge honor,” explains Dr. Taofeek.

In addition to the recognitions, Dr. Taofeek also published a book during his one year break after completing his PhD. The book, titled Underwater Wireless Power Transfer: Smart Ocean Energy Converters from Springer Nature publishing, discusses wireless power transfer in the ocean environment for the first time with a focus on topics such as power electronic techniques, advanced control strategies and charging of underwater autonomous vehicles. 

Dr. Taofeek accepted the award for the Connecticut IEEE-PES Outstanding Engineer of the Year in 2018.

A Match Made in Heaven

Dr. Taofeek’s career veered away from education when he was awarded with the exclusive NSF-IPERF Research Fellowship, a fellowship that only a few researchers were awarded in all of the United States. The fellowship is a postdoctoral, entrepreneurial, research fellowship with a goal of finding a new career for entrepreneurial-minded, doctorate degree holders in science and helping small businesses that support federal research.

With an interest in sensors in harsh environments and his new fellowship funding, Dr. Taofeek decided to approach Sensatek. “Finding Sensatek was like a match made in heaven because I needed to find a small business where I could share my expertise and receive entrepreneurial training in a research environment, and at the same time, Sensatek had received an award to go out and look for a PhD that could work on their technology,” shares Dr. Taofeek.

“I was motivated to apply to Sensatek because they were developing a novel way of interrogating passive sensors in harsh environments. They had an exceptional appeal to me because of their vital mission to make a significant advancement to knowledge and development of ultra-high temperature sensing technology and to promote the usage of newly developed materials like polymer-derived ceramics for sensor applications,” he says.

Driving the Mission Forward at Sensatek

As the Chief Engineer, Dr. Taofeek oversees the technical developments of the technology and takes responsibility for software development at Sensatek. He also serves as the RF subject matter expert in support of the wireless sensor design, prototype and fabrication. Additionally, he’s in charge of day-to-day management of Sensatek’s team of ten engineers.

“At Sensatek, we have material scientists, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers and aerospace engineers working with us. What I love about my job is that everyone shares the same vision and is dedicated to the mission of developing the world’s first passive sensor for harsh environments. We all work together as a unit and support each other while giving creative feedback—I really like that about my job. There’s no micromanagement either, everyone is working at a very high level,” shares Dr. Taofeek about his love of collaborating with his fellow Sensatek innovators.

Dr. Taofeek at a client site during a Sensatek test.

Industry Involvement

Although his main passion is driving innovation at Sensatek, Dr. Taofeek is very involved in a number of organizations in which he has professional affiliations, including:

• U.S. National Committee Member for the CIGRE
• Member of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, Power and Energy Society and Eta Kappa Nu (HKN)
• Member of the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP)
• Member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)

Dr. Taofeek has served as a Reviewer for many sectors of the IEEE and a Section Chair at the OCEANS’16 MTS/IEEE Conference. He is most proud to be a National Committee Member for the CIGRE, a collaborative global community committed to the world’s leading knowledge development program for the creation and sharing of power system expertise.

Passion for Outreach

In addition to his professional organization affiliations, Dr. Taofeek is proud of the community outreach programs he was a part of during his academic tenure. While earning his PhD at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Taofeek volunteered his time every Friday for four years as a STEM substitute teacher at local area high schools. “I wanted to give back to the local community because my PhD was paid for by taxpayers, so I felt like the least I could do was give back by teaching and mentoring students,” explains Dr. Taofeek.

Dr. Taofeek believes in the power of mentorship because he understands the importance of having somebody you can look up to and aspire to be. “The reason I am who I am today is because I’ve had great mentors. My father Engr. Hakeem is one of those people. I never thought I was going to do my PhD until I had a mentor with a PhD, and then I just wanted to achieve the same level of academic excellence as them,” he shares.

“There’s a lot of students, especially minority students, who don’t have mentors to look up to, so I’m proud that I could be that for some of my students. When I look back at all of my mentees, and some of them are at Ivy League universities, and I get feedback from them or their parents about how well they’re doing, it always brings me joy,” Dr. Taofeek says proudly. 

As a part of his teaching and mentoring efforts, Dr. Taofeek led and advised a group of students at Hartford Public High School to the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge in Huntsville, Alabama for two years in a row. The challenge is designed for nearly 1,000 students around the world to come together and compete by working with their faculty advisors to build a moon buggy prototype out of bicycle parts. 

“The students that I took to the NASA competition were usually the students struggling in the class. Everyone was skeptical of this choice, but I wanted to take the students that skipped school and were least inspired by the classroom setting,” Dr. Taofeek explains. “The first year it didn’t work out too well, but the second year I took the same group of students and it was a big deal because we actually won the competition with the Frank Joe Sexton Memorial Pit Crew Award in 2016. Leading and working with that group of students is something that I’m very, very proud of, but I don’t get to talk about much.”

Dr. Taofeek pictured with his group of Hartford Public High School students
at the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge in Huntsville, Alabama in 2016.

Beyond Sensatek

As a self-labeled workaholic, Dr. Taofeek initially struggled to think of what he likes to do outside of work before settling on enjoying kayaking and playing chess in his free time. When asked what he likes about chess, he shared that he likes the strategy and the fact that there’s more possible moves in the game than the number of atoms in the universe.

“When I talk to people about chess, I always use it as an example of why artificial intelligence (AI) is going to rule the world because that is something that as human beings we can never, ever do,” Dr. Taofeek shares. “We can never actually play a chess game in all the moves that are available, but a computer can actually do that, and do it pretty fast using a quantum computer, so I like that about the game.”

Dr. Taofeek kayaking during his free time.

When asked about a fact that most people are surprised to learn, Dr. Taofeek shares that he initially wanted to be a soccer player, not an engineer. “I prided myself as a good soccer player when I was growing up, and some of my friends ended up going to Europe to play. When I was younger, I always snuck out of the house and skipped school to play,” he shares smiling. 

When he decided he didn’t want to pursue professional soccer, Dr. Taofeek found electrical engineering by considering his strengths and interests. “I wanted a career that was going to be very challenging for me and everyone seems to be scared of math, but I like math. From there, I found out that I liked programming as well. I realized I like math, I like programming and I’m good at physics, so when I added all of those together, it became electrical engineering,” he explains.

When it comes to advising those interested in engineering, Dr. Taofeek’s advice is simple, yet profound. “Do something that you find fun and success will follow. Especially in this field, there will be a lot of challenges, embrace them,” he advises.

“I think, therefore I am.”
– René Descartes

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