Summary
Michael Pust is a research-focused software engineer with 20+ years of experience applying NLP, speech recognition, and machine translation to real-world problems—from DARPA field exercises to autonomous aircraft. He blends deep engineering (C++, GPU-accelerated deep learning, MPI/Hadoop) with hands-on research practice, shepherding state-of-the-art MT and semantic-parsing pipelines into production and operational use. At Merlin Labs he led a small team building a live speech-to-semantics system for ATC communications, and now at Essential AI he specializes in pragmatic LLM orchestration—“leashing” models so they are reliably useful. Comfortable mentoring students and engineers alike, he has a track record of turning research ideas into deployable systems and visualization tools that reveal error modes others miss.
10 years of coding experience
21 years of employment as a software developer
University of California, San Diego
Bachelors, Mathematics, Bachelors, Mathematics at University of California, Riverside