PREVIOUSLY, ON RYAN…

Somehow,
Ryan returned!

Hi friends. My name is Ryan Mott.
I’m into a lot of things.
The plot got a little complicated.

Catch up on the backstory

Ryan Mott, in headphones and a knit cap — RYAN MOTT OCCASIONALLY OFFLINE

Scenes from Ryan’s previous campaigns of peril and victory.

Proof I occasionally leave the computer.

A hiker with a helmet, sunglasses, and an ice axe stands on a glacier. — A side quest with an ice axe.

A couple holds a golden dog on a rooftop, with the Manhattan skyline behind them. — A rooftop, a skyline, and the party’s most valuable member.

A couple dancing at a wedding reception, with guests watching from the edge of the dance floor. — A brief victory dance.

HI AGAIN.

Circuits.
Courtrooms.
Googly eyes.

A hiker in a blue jacket and sunglasses, with a glacier and snowy mountain peaks behind him. — The side quest got a little out of hand.

I like figuring
things out.

My path has taken me through engineering, law, full-time parenting, and back to engineering. These days, I spend a lot of time building things with code.

I have two engineering degrees and a law degree. Engineering taught me about the rules of the natural world. Law got me thinking about the rules we make for ourselves, and how well they serve justice.

AI gives me another set of tools to learn and experiment with. I’ve learned enough to make things, and I’m still learning.

Sometimes that means a legal research tool.
Sometimes it means a nuclear reactor
with googly eyes.

RM87 is where I share those projects. Some are useful; some are deliberately silly. Have a look around.

I also serve on the board of Concordia Conservatory, a music school. Music has stuck with me through all of this.

Ryan

P.S. I don’t do social media all that well. Sorry. #hashtag

OPTIONAL SIDE QUESTS

The cutscenes.

I bought a drone. These are the consequences.

A lake doing a very good impression of a screensaver.

01 / 03 · 15 SEC · SILENT

THE BACKSTORY

The campaign
so far.

Space experiments, sound effects, courtrooms, kids, and a return to engineering. Open a chapter.

01Circuits, zero gravity & pirate songsBROWN UNIVERSITY · ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

I studied electrical engineering at Brown. With the Space Club, I worked on an experiment that took me aboard the “Vomit Comet” to experience reduced gravity firsthand.

I was also production director at the radio station, making sound effects and strange, fun musical things in Pro Tools. And I sang in a pirate-themed a cappella group.

Ryan in a flight suit floating above a laptop inside the padded cabin of the reduced-gravity aircraft. — A lab with a little less gravity.

02The rules we make for ourselvesMICHIGAN LAW · WIPO · GENEVA

Next came law school at the University of Michigan, and an internship at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. While I was in Geneva, I also visited CERN.

I also posted a few informal essays online about New Mexico’s Spaceport America, flags of convenience, and libel tourism in Reykjavík.

Ryan wearing a red ATLAS visitor hard hat at CERN, with the detector hall behind him. — A visit to CERN during my time in Geneva.

03A long stretch in patent litigationPATTERSON BELKNAP, 2012–2019 · VENABLE

I spent 2012 through 2019 at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, working as a patent litigator. It was a place where the engineering and the law could meet: understanding how something works, then explaining why that matters.

I moved to Venable and stayed for just over a year. Then COVID arrived, and the priorities of our family changed.

Ryan in a dark suit and blue tie, smiling with his arms folded. — The patent-litigation years.

04Home, then a different kind of startupFULL-TIME PARENTING · AUGMENTED REALITY

I left my job to stay home and take care of my children. After about a year of full-time parenting, I went back to work, this time at an augmented reality startup.

That eventually led me back to school to study nuclear engineering.

Ryan holding a drone controller on a sandy beach beside blue water. — At the beach. Still holding a gadget.

05Back to engineering. Into nuclear.NC STATE · NRC · HADRON ENERGY

I earned my master’s in nuclear engineering at NC State. My master’s project explored machine learning in nuclear forensics. Courses in data mining and 3D graphics opened up another set of interests: coding, AI, and game design.

Near the end of my studies, I spent about six months at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission working on advanced reactor policy. I then joined Hadron Energy as Director of Licensing and Operations, leading its regulatory plan.

I led development of Hadron’s quality assurance program, based on ASME NQA-1-2022. The NRC accepted the program in 2026 for reference in future licensing applications. Hadron’s announcement describes this as the first such acceptance for a light-water microreactor company.

After Hadron went public, I left to focus on RM87.

Read my nuclear forensics project PDF ↗