Sentient Things designs, builds, and operates rugged sensing systems and data platforms that turn real-world measurements into reliable, operational insight.
Since 2017 the company has focused on practical, field-ready solutions for monitoring, forecasting, and decision support.
Rob founded Sentient Things after running into the limits of NOAA tide predictions firsthand — navigating shallow coastal waters on Cape Cod where the official forecasts simply didn't match local conditions. That frustration led to the first prototype and eventually to two commercial products: TideAlerts, a real-time tide monitoring platform for coastal businesses and recreational boaters, and FloodLevels, a municipal flood monitoring network built for emergency planning and community resilience. His background spans executive roles at S&P 500 companies and the founding of multiple IoT ventures. He works across the full stack — hardware design, firmware, and cloud architecture — and holds U.S. Patent 11,371,841 for a tilt-based tide sensor developed at Sentient Things. Before focusing on coastal monitoring, Rob led hardware and firmware development for the Zeptive vape detector, an industry-first sensor deployed in schools and commercial facilities.
Evelyn builds and maintains the web applications behind TideAlerts and FloodLevels, working across the full stack from cloud infrastructure to user-facing interfaces. Her work at Sentient Things spans frontend development, cloud applications, and CI/CD pipelines. Before focusing full-time on Sentient Things, Evelyn contributed to software development at Zeptive and completed an internship at MathWorks, where she worked across R&D and cloud applications. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Northeastern University.
Dan brings over 30 years of oceanographic research and consulting experience to Sentient Things, with deep expertise in coastal and estuarine systems across New England. His work spans physical oceanography, hydrodynamics, water quality, pollution transport, ocean observing technologies, and climate processes — the full scientific context in which tide and flood monitoring operates. He is the creator of UTide, a unified tidal analysis package originally developed in MATLAB and now ported to Python, adopted by researchers in over a dozen countries. UTide is a core component of the TideAlerts platform, underpinning the analysis and forecasting of water level data collected by Sentient Things sensors. Dan offers independent consulting services and holds a University Affiliate appointment with the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. His career includes senior roles at Tetra Tech, Running Tide, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, the University of Connecticut, and URI, spanning research, teaching, and applied consulting. He holds a PhD and MS in Oceanography from the University of Washington and a BS in Applied Physics from UC Davis.
Alison leads sales and marketing at Sentient Things, where the focus is on bringing flood and tide monitoring solutions to municipalities, public agencies, coastal businesses, and homeowners. The company's two core products — FloodLevels and TideAlerts — deliver real-time water level data, local forecasts, and actionable insights for flood risk management, emergency planning, and coastal navigation. Alison's leadership approach is grounded in volunteer governance and community engagement, with a track record of making sound decisions under uncertainty and delivering measurable results. Outside of Sentient Things, Name is a working potter, designing and selling functional and artistic pieces through shows and craft fairs. The discipline of running a studio — creativity, precision, and seeing projects through — carries directly into the work at Sentient Things.
For inquiries about deployments, partnerships, or product information, email sales@sentientthings.com.