Howard University doctoral student Cameron Lewis is turning Washington D.C.’s infamous traffic into a testing ground for life-saving innovation. Instead of seeing congestion as chaos, the electrical engineering candidate sees an opportunity to use quantum science and cutting-edge sensors to help emergency vehicles move faster and safer through gridlocked streets.
Lewis, set to complete his PhD in 2025, is developing a system that uses lidar sensors and quantum-enhanced mapping to create early alerts for drivers when emergency vehicles approach. His idea: reroute traffic before sirens start wailing, reducing panic and delays that can cost lives.
“People always scramble when they hear the siren,” Lewis said. “But what if you could know ahead of time, before it even becomes a crisis?”
He presented his research earlier this month at the first HBCU CHIPS Network Conference, hosted on April 3 as part of Howard University’s Research Month. The event brought together over 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), alongside federal officials and tech industry leaders, to advance semiconductor research and high-tech workforce development.
The conference also marked Howard’s growing reputation as a research powerhouse. The university recently achieved R1 status, a designation reserved for institutions with the highest level of research activity in the U.S.
Bruce Jones, Howard’s senior vice president of research, praised the collective effort behind the progress. “This network of HBCU researchers didn’t just appear,” he said. “It was built over years and now stands as a historic force for innovation and national competitiveness.”
Lewis’s doctoral project falls under the field of quantum information science — a discipline that examines how the smallest elements in a system affect the whole. He compares it to tracking a single car on a highway to better manage entire traffic patterns.
But Lewis isn’t interested in abstract theory. “I’m a hardware guy,” he said. “I want to build real systems.” That drive led him to explore how quantum principles like entanglement — where particles remain linked across distances — can be applied to lidar sensors to generate more precise 3D maps in emergency scenarios.
His journey into engineering started with reluctance. As a high school student in Buffalo, New York, Lewis only chose computer science to avoid a dance elective. But things changed when he built an autonomous drone for a senior project. “That moment — seeing my code make something real fly — sealed it for me,” he said.
At Howard, he deepened his understanding of computer and electrical engineering under the mentorship of the late Dr. Michaela Amoo. Amoo’s hands-on teaching style and focus on system-building helped Lewis sharpen both his skills and his purpose. He became her first graduate student, working closely with her in the Hardware Design Lab until her passing in 2023.
“Dr. Amoo changed my whole understanding,” Lewis said. “She believed in creating full systems — building your own chip, your own product, to solve real-world problems.”
Her influence remains deeply embedded in his research and teaching. Outside of his lab work, Lewis currently teaches seventh-grade math at Lincoln Multicultural Middle School in D.C., encouraging students — many of them African American and bilingual — to find joy and community in STEM fields.
Lewis recalls moments in high school where being smart in science felt isolating. At Howard, however, he found a culture where Black students were not just welcomed but equipped to lead.
“At Howard, you’re given the tools to innovate, to lead, to build,” he said. “That changes everything.”
This summer, Lewis is returning to his roots in Buffalo to host a summer camp at the Nichols School, aiming to introduce Black students to the basics of quantum science and chip design — helping spark the same realization he once had: that technology can be both empowering and transformative.
