VL Vicky Alexandra Lopez

Hesperia, California

Vicky Alexandra Lopez

Twelve years fighting wildfire: seven with the U.S. Forest Service, including on the Dalton Hotshots, and five on military fire activations with the Army National Guard. Now she builds the AI that watches for it: student researcher on NASA’s ACERO wildfire aviation program at UC Berkeley’s Disaster Lab, Senior AI Engineer at Cobalt Academy, and founder of NB Tech AI Solutions.

See the full record LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)
Vicky Alexandra Lopez smiling with arms crossed in a black polo, standing in front of the Veterans Success Center
USFS 2015 to 2022 Dalton Hotshots Army National Guard 2010 to 2017 NASA ACERO UC Berkeley Disaster Lab MIDS expected 2027 Senior AI Engineer, Cobalt Academy NB Tech AI Solutions est. 2021 Dryad Networks ELMFIRE, Gollner Lab Fire Eye UAV Hesperia, California

The mission

Twelve years on the line.

Now the aircraft carry the water.

She works on the systems that fly them.

Uncrewed aircraft over an active fire line, working the airspace alongside crewed aviation. That is the problem NASA’s ACERO program is solving, and it is where a hotshot’s field record meets the engineering.

See the research

01

About

Vicky came to AI through fire, not the other way around. Twelve years of it: seven with the U.S. Forest Service in San Bernardino as a firefighter, Assistant Engineer, and Dalton Hotshot, working live wildland fire across national forests, and five fighting fire with the Army National Guard, activated for state wildfire emergencies and campaign fires across California during seven years of service as a Diesel Mechanic Sergeant.

That field record now drives the research. At UC Berkeley’s Disaster Lab she works as a student researcher on NASA’s ACERO program, the agency’s effort to bring advanced aviation and uncrewed aircraft to wildfire response. She has deployed detection sensors and gateways in high-risk fire zones with Dryad Networks, modeled fire spread in wildland-urban interface areas with ELMFIRE in Berkeley’s Gollner lab, and built her own Fire Eye UAV, a machine-learning system that classifies fuels and computes the Burning Index from live sensor data.

She is completing a Master of Information and Data Science at UC Berkeley (expected May 2027) on top of a B.S. in Computer Engineering from CSU San Bernardino, and she founded NB Tech AI Solutions in 2021: a verified SAM.gov federal contractor and a website and software practice for small businesses. She still reads an incident report the way someone who has stood on the line reads it.

02

Experience

  1. 2026Present

    Student Researcher, NASA ACERO Program

    Disaster Lab, University of California, Berkeley

    Research on NASA’s Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) program, which is developing the aviation technology to let uncrewed aircraft and remotely piloted systems work wildfires safely alongside crewed air operations. She brings both sides of that problem: years on the fireline under working aircraft, and the AI, sensing, and geospatial engineering to model it.

  2. 2026Present

    Senior AI Engineer

    Cobalt Academy Inc.

    Veteran-led drone training and counter-UAS advisory company. AI/ML, data pipelines, sensor integration, and geospatial analysis for the academy’s UAS and counter-UAS work, alongside software development and partnership coordination.

  3. 2021Present

    Owner & AI Systems Engineer

    NB Tech AI Solutions, Hesperia, CA

    Federal small business contractor (UEI KTGYE3LADCR3, CAGE 16F03, NAICS 541511) and client software practice. AI-powered wildfire intelligence, custom software, web development, data engineering, and computer repair and training.

    • Designed and trained AI models with NVIDIA CUDA, TensorRT, and deep learning frameworks for facial recognition and NLP
    • Built end-to-end data pipelines serving structured and unstructured data to LLM agents through custom Model Context Protocol servers in Python and TypeScript
    • Implemented validation, observability, and authentication layers for production deployments on secure server and network environments
    • Verified SAM.gov vendor; designed, built, and launched client sites for aviation training, construction, beauty, and executive personal brands
  4. 20242025

    AI Sensor Integration Intern

    Dryad Networks

    Tested and implemented the Dryad AI Planning Application by deploying detection sensors and gateways in high-risk wildfire zones, and developed fire-prevention strategies through data analysis and stakeholder engagement.

  5. 2024

    Wildfire Modeling Researcher

    UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering, Gollner Lab

    Computational modeling of wildfire behavior with ELMFIRE to predict fire spread in wildland-urban interface areas, and validation of radiant heat transfer in firebrands as a key factor in fire heat transmission.

  6. 20152022

    Firefighter, Assistant Engineer & Dalton Hotshot

    U.S. Forest Service, San Bernardino, CA

    Seven years of high-consequence wildland fire response across national forests, from engine crews to the Dalton Hotshots.

    • Aviation operations: aircraft capabilities and limitations, flight planning, flight following, and aviation safety protocols for fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft
    • Incident and accident notification, duty limitations, and resource scheduling in live fire and administrative operations
    • Field knowledge of where detection hardware fails in ways clean data never shows: canopy occlusion, line-of-sight, vandalism, animal damage
  7. 20102017

    Diesel Mechanic Sergeant

    U.S. Army National Guard, 1/160th Infantry Battalion, Santa Ana, CA

    Seven years of service, honorably discharged, five of them fighting fire. Activated during state wildfire emergencies, fought wildland fire on military activations, and led transportation of troops to campaign fires across California.

    • Maintained accountability and readiness for 25 wheeled vehicles and 15 generators valued above $1 million
    • Supervised, trained, advised, and professionally developed subordinates
03

Education & Leadership

M.S. Information & Data Science

University of California, Berkeley

Expected May 2027

Applied work on public wildfire datasets and early-detection sensor performance, bringing operational field experience to the modeling.

B.S. Computer Engineering

California State University, San Bernardino

Cal-Bridge Program Recipient, Cohort 10

National Honor Society. Coursework across AI, machine learning, AI agents, drones, operating systems, and computer hardware.

Leadership

  • Chief Scientist, NASA L’SPACE Mission Concept Academy (2022 to 2024): directed research on chemical compounds critical to sustaining human life on Mars and led a multidisciplinary team through deliverables to NASA stakeholders
  • Vice President, Student Veteran Organization (2023 to Present): secured event funding, grew membership, and created a campus math coaching program
04

On GitHub

Code from the fireline. Public work lives at NonBinaryTech.

Open source Public profile github.com/NonBinaryTech Wildfire dashboards, sensor pipelines, and the tooling behind NB Tech AI Solutions. Cloned from the field, not the textbook. Open the profile (opens in a new tab)

Featured repository

wildfire-dashboard Dryad Dashboard prototype from the AI Sensor Integration internship: early-detection sensor networks in high-risk fire zones. NonBinaryTech / wildfire-dashboard (opens in a new tab)
git clone https://github.com/NonBinaryTech/wildfire-dashboard.git
05

Contact

For consulting, contracting, or a website, reach out through NB Tech AI Solutions. For everything else, this form or LinkedIn works.

NB Tech AI Solutions (opens in a new tab) LinkedIn (opens in a new tab) GitHub (opens in a new tab)

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