Michael Dawson-haggerty is a robotics engineer with 14 years of hands-on experience designing systems that blend mechanical engineering, systems software, and computer vision for material handling and research applications. He has worked in stealth venture-backed robotics at Berkshire Grey and currently leads engineering efforts at kerfed.com, after foundational roles at Carnegie Mellon and research at Brookhaven. Comfortable across hardware and backend software, he contributes to open-source 3D tooling—improving trimesh and pyassimp to make mesh I/O and processing more robust and performant. His background in mechanical engineering (Tufts, CMU) and early metrology work informs a pragmatic approach to precision, sensor integration, and production-ready algorithms. Colleagues describe him as a practical polymath who bridges lab-grade experimentation with deployable robotics products.
14 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
BSME, Mechanical Engineering, BSME, Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University
MS, Mechanical Engineering, MS, Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University
Python library for loading and using triangular meshes.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Contributions:246 releases, 7 reviews, 3426 commits in 9 years 7 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily contributed to fixing and improving the `trimesh` Python library, specifically addressing color issues in mesh repairs, implementing facet-aware smoothing techniques, and making various performance optimizations. The user made changes to improve existing graph algorithms and implemented a new function for the creation of truncated prisms. They fixed several issues in file import and export routines.
The official Open-Asset-Importer-Library Repository. Loads 40+ 3D-file-formats into one unified and clean data structure.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Contributions:6 commits, 1 PR, 1 comment in 1 year 2 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily contributed to the `pyassimp` Python library, focusing on extending its functionality and improving its usability. They added the capability to load models from file objects, which enhanced the library's flexibility. The user also addressed Windows-specific issues by adding search paths for DLLs and cleaned up error messages. Moreover, the user updated the docstrings to improve the clarity and documentation of the library and changed default postprocessing options.
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Michael Dawson-haggerty - Robotics Engineer at kerfed.com