Damon Dvorson

I build end-to-end systems that move from prototype to real-world adoption fast—especially where the data is messy, the constraints are real, and the product must work in production.

I’m currently building Leafra AI (Jasemin), a privacy-first in-room wellness monitor for senior living. Previously, I founded Housing Helper, a housing and sublet marketplace that scaled across UCSB with enterprise partnerships and recurring revenue.

Accomplishments

Leafra AI (Jasemin). Multimodal monitoring and analytics for senior living (falls, care tracking, mobility/hydration patterns).
Housing Helper. Shipped mobile + web platform in ~3 months while a full-time DS student; scaled to 9,000+ UCSB users; closed 5 enterprise property management contracts; made $30,000 profit in 3 months.
Sublet marketplace rebuild. Payments + digital agreements in 2 weeks; processed first full month of rent within 48 hours of launch.
Pre-college. Columbia Unconventional Electronics (BLE + indoor localization); NASA HUNCH finalist; physics/math olympiad track; CLUE internship; National AP Scholar.

Work

Leafra AI (Jasemin) — Co-Founder & COO
Building a privacy-first camera + on-device/edge analytics pipeline for senior living: wellness monitoring, event detection, operational metrics, and actionable alerts. Focus: shipping reliable systems in real facilities.
Housing Helper — Founder & CEO
Built and scaled a housing marketplace: listings, roommate matching, multilingual Q&A, digital agreements, and payments. Strong emphasis on distribution, enterprise partnerships, and fast iteration under real constraints.

Research

My technical foundation started in embedded sensing and localization—working with noisy, real-world signals and building systems that need to behave correctly, not just in theory.

Columbia Laboratory for Unconventional Electronics — Engineering / Research (high school)
Developed Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication for biosensor modules; improved indoor localization by combining trilateration with dead-reckoning using a Kalman filter as a fusion center. Contributed to behavioral research instrumentation during the COVID era.
NASA HUNCH — Finalist
Designed an astronaut-oriented mechanism (spacesuit/helmet-adjacent concept) emphasizing mechanical reliability, safety, and failure modes, alongside embedded control considerations.

Projects

Single-photo room pricing. Used depth inference to estimate spatial geometry from one photo; integrated into a marketplace workflow for pricing fairness and speed.
AI housing search + multilingual Q&A. Natural-language search over listings and policies; designed for instant answers and preference matching.
Digital agreements + rent/payment flows. Shipped an end-to-end transactional experience—contracts, identity, and payments—optimized for adoption and reliability.
Edge-first monitoring stack. Camera + edge compute pipeline for safety and operational analytics in senior care, balancing privacy, latency, and accuracy.

Pre-college trajectory

Physics/Math Olympiad track. Competitive problem-solving foundations; comfort with rigorous math and fast learning loops.
NASA HUNCH. National finalist; engineered under safety/reliability constraints.
CLUE / Columbia lab internship. Embedded + localization work with real research instrumentation needs.
College Board National AP Scholar. High-volume exam performance; self-study and disciplined execution.

Contact

If you’re building ambitious systems—especially where AI meets the physical world—I’m easy to reach.