Philip Zucker is a Senior Computer Scientist and programmer with 11 years of experience blending formal methods, robotics, and functional programming into production-grade tools. Based in Somerville, MA, he develops verification and tooling at Draper while co-running Sheepdog, LLC, bringing an entrepreneurial edge to research-driven engineering. His background spans a PhD in physics, robotic control software at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and Haskell test harnesses—reflecting a rare mix of theoretical depth and pragmatic implementation. An active open-source contributor, he strengthened the high-performance e-graph library egg by improving its core datalog testing and multi-pattern matching capabilities. Philip’s technical interests range from FPGA and software-defined radio to optimal control and numerical computation, which he frequently combines in cross-disciplinary projects. Curious and iterative by nature, he focuses on edge cases and automation to make complex systems auditable and robust.
11 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Physics, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Physics at Brown University
Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), Engineering Physics, Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), Engineering Physics at University of Pittsburgh
egg is a flexible, high-performance e-graph library
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Test Automation Engineer
Contributions:1 review, 6 commits, 1 PR in 10 days
Contributions summary:Philip primarily contributed to the `egg` e-graph library by implementing and refining its testing framework and core datalog functionality. Their work involved adding new tests to verify the behavior of the library, specifically focusing on edge cases and multi-pattern matching. The commits also included code formatting and improvements to the machine and pattern matching components. They also added functionality to the datalog testing features.
Contributions:17 commits, 13 pushes, 2 branches in 2 months
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Philip Zucker - Senior Computer Scientist Programmer at Draper