Jacob Damant

Edmonton, AB · open to relocation

I design, build, and commission hardware, from production machinery to robotic test rigs.

BSc Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta (2025). Co-founded Level 7 Plastics, which took four open-source machine designs to a working recycling line and became a permanent university research group. Founded Wound³, a 3D wound-imaging company selected as the lead software vendor for an ARPA-H funded study. Built the first hardware prototypes of a light-based diagnostic, and later its software.

companies co-founded
2
raised across both companies
~$1.5M
production machines built
4
people led across four teams
~40

Experience

  1. 2019–2021
    The Level 7 founders in the shop, 2022

    Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer

    Level 7 Plastics

    I co-founded Level 7 with two friends in our first year of engineering at the University of Alberta. At the end of 2017 China had stopped accepting most foreign plastic waste, closing a major export outlet for a country that already sent 86% of its plastic waste to landfill. Level 7 set out to show that recycling could happen where the waste is generated: a line compact enough to run on campus, on the university's own plastic.

    $400k
    in funding secured
    1,600
    sq ft of lab and production space
    ~30
    research-group members today

    Level 7 in detail →level7plastics.com ↗

    Projects

  2. 2020–2022
    One of the later light boxes built for Pavonis Diagnostics

    Research assistant, then hardware contractor

    Diagnostic hardware

    • Dr. Burrell's lab, University of AlbertaApr 2020 – Sep 2020

      After first year I joined Dr. Robert Burrell's biomedical engineering lab at the University of Alberta as its lead hardware designer, building the tooling behind the group's thin-film diagnostics research: laboratory automation for the anodizing and sputtering processes that produce the membranes, fluid-control devices that spread sample evenly across a membrane to raise its sensitivity, and slide cartridges that hold the thin-film slides at a fixed angle so researchers can read them in the lab. The work is credited in Ciaran Terry's 2021 MSc thesis and in a paper by Natalie Vankka, currently under review. Pavonis Diagnostics later built its product on these thin-film membranes.

    • Pavonis Diagnostics (hardware)Oct 2020 – Jul 2022

      Pavonis Diagnostics builds an antibody test on the thin-film membranes developed in Dr. Burrell's lab: when target proteins bind to the membrane, its reflected interference colour shifts. The light box is the reader for that test, an enclosure that holds the membrane slide at a fixed angle to an LED light source and a camera so the colour change can be imaged consistently. As a contractor I designed and built the original prototype (Fusion 360 enclosure, 3D-printed, LED array, battery power, and manual angle adjustment), then iterated it to servo-controlled slide angle, lighting adjustable from an LCD control panel (Arduino Nano), and a smaller form factor.

  3. 2022–2026
    The Wound³ 3D reconstruction view with the automatic wound mask (demo)

    Founder and Chief Technology Officer

    Wound³

    Wound³ grew out of my time in Dr. Burrell's lab, where one of my Level 7 co-founders and I recognized how archaic modern wound care remains and how far it lags technologically: wounds are still measured with rulers and cotton swabs, largely in person, and wound care cost Canada more than $12 billion in 2023. We set out to capture accurate 3D wound models with an iPhone, in hospital or at home, so clinicians could monitor healing remotely, charting could be automated, and patients would need fewer visits.

    ~$1.1M
    raised
    8
    team members led
    3
    hospitals in the pilot
    $3M USD
    proposed SOW for a 14-hospital rollout

    Wound³ in detail →wound3.com ↗

    Projects

  4. 2024–2025

    After an engineering firm industrialized my prototypes into a production light box, Pavonis engaged my company, Fabri Sciences, to build its software.

  5. 2024–2025

    Project manager and lead software architect

    Contract work

    • Pavonis Diagnostics (software)Dec 2024 – Mar 2025

      My company, Fabri Sciences, was contracted to build Pavonis Diagnostics' full software suite for its light-box antibody diagnostic: web app, backend, cloud image processing, and USB device control. The system remains in use.

      5 developers led

    • Bursting SilverApr 2025 – Oct 2025

      Contract engagement for Energy Safety Canada, which audits energy-sector sites for safety. Most sites have poor connectivity, so auditors recorded findings on paper and re-entered long, complex audits into a legacy web app afterwards. I led the seven-person team that replaced that workflow with an offline-first app and a cloud sync service, delivered on time and under budget.

      7 developers led

  6. Next

    Next: a hardware-focused mechanical engineering role, doing rigorous design work on products that matter.

Education

BSc Mechanical Engineering (Co-op), University of Alberta

Sep 2019 – Apr 2025

Biomedical engineering specialization · Co-op terms at Level 7 Plastics and Wound³ · Capstone: automated 3D-capture test system on an AR4 robotic arm · FEA course project in ANSYS: stress analysis of the Level 7 sheet press

Skills

Awards

Contact

jacobdamant@outlook.com