Sébastien De Thun
Photonics Research Scientist at Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Wavre, Walloon Brabant, Belgium
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolSébastien De Thun is a photonics research scientist with nine years of experience, currently working on photonic neuromorphic computing at Hewlett Packard Labs' LSIP team in Belgium. He holds a cum laude MSc in Photonics Engineering from Ghent University and is pursuing a PhD in photonics, blending rigorous academic training with hands-on lab and systems work. Comfortable in both software and hardware domains, he has implemented core improvements to open-source tooling—rewriting Typst's CLI to improve usability—and has prior software internships building .NET and C# prototypes. His background in electrical engineering and computer science gives him a pragmatic systems view that bridges device physics, algorithmic architectures, and tooling. Known among peers as an RIIR enthusiast, he brings curiosity and a maker’s discipline to scaling photonic computation.
9 years of coding experience
Bachelor's degree, Civil Engineering - Electrical engineering and Computer Science, Bachelor's degree, Civil Engineering - Electrical engineering and Computer Science at Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain@UCLouvainPhD, Photonics, PhD, Photonics at Ghent University
French, English, German
Github Skills (9)
clap10
command-line-interface10
rust10
typesetting10
command-line10
cli10
compiler-compiler9
compiler9
markup8
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
typst/typst
Mar 2023 - Jul 2025
A markup-based typesetting system that is powerful and easy to learn.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:205 reviews, 91 PRs, 561 comments in 2 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Sébastien primarily contributed to the Typst typesetting system by rewriting the command-line interface (CLI) using the clap library. Their work involved refactoring the CLI's structure, adding language support, and implementing features such as the "open" flag for the output file after compilation. These changes indicate a focus on improving the usability and functionality of the Typst compiler. The user also addressed issues like allowing negative powers and fixing numbering, indicating involvement in core functionality improvements.
typesettingcompilermarkuptypst
Dherse/typst
Mar 2023 - Aug 2025
A new markup-based typesetting system that is powerful and easy to learn.
Contributions:97 PRs, 815 pushes, 176 branches in 2 years 5 months
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