
Dr. O’Keeffe's areas of expertise include the analysis and design of embedded electronics with particular emphasis on sensor and instrumentation systems. He addresses issues relating to printed circuit boards problems, electrical component failure and sensor data acquisition. Dr. O’Keeffe has worked on projects involving consumer electronics, biomedical devices, wireless sensors, and vehicles. He has additional expertise in the areas of design for manufacturability, and the development of post-production quality tests, intended to highlight potential early-lifetime-failures.
Prior to joining Exponent Dr. O’Keeffe was a Systems Engineer for NASA Ames, where he worked for 7 years in the Exploration Technology Division. He led projects to develop embedded hardware for reusable launch vehicles and future generation crew exploration vehicles. This work involves developing and debugging microcontroller-based data acquisition modules and miniature wireless sensors, including circuit board design, firmware, testing, and failure analysis.

O’Keeffe JT, Cozmuta I, Bose D, Stolc V. A predictive MD-Nernst–Planck model for transport in Alpha-Hemolysin: Modeling anisotropic ion currents. Chemical Physics 2007; 342(6): 25–32, December.
Cozmuta I, O’Keeffe JT, Bose D, Stolc V. Hybrid MD-Nernst Planck Model of Alpha-hemolysin conductance properties. Journal of Molecular Simulation, January 2005.
O’Keeffe JT, Cozmuta I, and Stolc V. Polymer translocation through a nanopore: A geometry dependence study. IEEE-NANO, 2003.
O’Keeffe JT, Wei C, Cho K. Bandstructure modulation for carbon nanotubes in a uniform electric field. Applied Physics Letters 2002; 80:676.
Mingo N, Han J, Anantram MP, O'Keeffe J. Local conductance and saturation lengths of atomic wires dipped in a conducting medium. 200th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society, San Francisco, CA, 2001.
O’Keeffe J, Mingo N, Anantram MP, Cho K. Band structure simulation of a metal-nanotube junction. Proceedings, SRC Techcon Conference, 2000.
Peng S, O'Keeffe J, Wei C, Cho K, Kong J, Chen R, Franklin N, Dai H. Carbon nanotube chemical and mechanical sensors. Proceeding, 3rd International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, 2001.
Barlage DW, O'Keeffe JT, Kavalieros JT, Nguyen MM, Chau RS. Inversion MOS capacitance extraction for high-leakage dielectrics using a transmission line equivalent circuit. IEEE Electron Device Letters 2000; 21(9): 454 –456, September.
Presentations
O'Keeffe J. Computational materials and nano-electronic simulations. CIS Adcom, Stanford University, November 2001.
O'Keeffe J. PolyA single stranded DNA translocation through an alpha-hemolysin pore stem. Darpa Bioflips, February 2003.
O'Keeffe J. Nanopore sensors for the detection and analysis of biological polymers. Darpa Bioflips, September 2003.