Christian Zhou

McMaster Computer Science Co-op

About Me

I am a Computer Science co-op student at McMaster University (B.A.Sc., April 2027; cGPA 10.2/12). I am looking for new-grad software roles and a Fall 2027 master’s in applied systems.

I build device-to-dashboard systems: firmware and MQTT on the device, a FastAPI and PostgreSQL API in the middle, and a React dashboard on top. My co-op work was a Java Spring Boot API, including response contracts, server hardening, and data automation.

  • Core skills: Java, Python, C++, TypeScript, SQL, FastAPI, Spring Boot, Docker
  • Interests: IoT telemetry, APIs, operational dashboards, and applied machine learning
  • GitHub · LinkedIn

Projects

Device-to-dashboard system: ESP32 telemetry, a FastAPI and PostgreSQL API, and a React UI.

Smart Plant Platform is an end-to-end sensing stack. An ESP32 node publishes sensor readings, and a web app stores them, aggregates them, and shows the result.

Pipeline

  • ESP32 firmware in C++ reads plant and room sensors and publishes MQTT telemetry
  • FastAPI and PostgreSQL ingest those messages and serve time-binned history
  • The API derives climate metrics (VPD, PPFD, and DLI) from stored temperature, humidity, and light readings
  • A React dashboard shows the charts and those metrics

Status

  • Runs locally and is packaged with Docker Compose
  • Public deployment, the mobile app, and NFC tagging are still in progress

Medical Device Supply Disruption Dashboard

Two-term capstone: a predictive analytics dashboard for medical-device supply disruptions.

Course capstone (September 2026 – April 2027) with a healthcare supply-chain, procurement, and back-office partner.

Scope

  • Building a dashboard for disruption events in medical-device supply
  • The partner has committed proprietary historical disruption data
  • Forecasting and the dashboard are in progress

Full-stack file storage app with a Spring Boot API, PostgreSQL, and a React client.

SkySync is a file-storage application deployed on a Linux VPS.

Stack

  • Spring Boot and PostgreSQL API, with JWT authentication and DTO response contracts
  • React and TypeScript client, including an OpenAPI-generated client
  • File storage on AWS S3
  • Docker Compose, Nginx with HTTPS, and GitHub Actions for unit and integration tests

Experience

IDI-ITech Development Inc.

Website Developer Co-op

September 2025 – December 2025

  • Refactored Java Spring Boot service-layer logic and used DTOs so API responses did not expose sensitive fields.
  • Led malware remediation, removing about 6,000 spam posts and hardening the server with restricted file permissions and Apache security settings.
  • Wrote Python scripts to automate administrative data extraction and DNS consolidation.

Education

McMaster University

B.A.Sc., Honours Computer Science Co-op

September 2022 – April 2027

Cumulative average 10.2/12.

Relevant coursework: Databases, Applications of Machine Learning, Data-Driven Algorithms, Computer Networks and Security, Operating Systems, Statistical Methods and Application.

Skills

Languages: Python, Java, C++, TypeScript, JavaScript, SQL, Bash

Backend and data: FastAPI, Spring Boot, JUnit, REST APIs, PostgreSQL, MQTT, Alembic

Frontend: React, TypeScript

DevOps: Docker, Docker Compose, GitHub Actions, AWS S3, Nginx, Linux

Analysis: pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib; machine learning coursework