Wil Thomason
Roboticist Research Scientist at RAI Institute
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolWil Thomason is a roboticist and research scientist with 12 years of experience bridging core robotics research and systems-level software engineering. Currently at the RAI Institute after a postdoc at Rice and a PhD from Cornell, he specializes in integrated task and motion planning, hardware-accelerated motion planning, and planning under uncertainty. He pairs classical AI planning, motion-planning algorithms, and machine learning to make complex, logic-and-geometry-constrained robot problems fast and robust. A pragmatic full-stack developer as well as researcher, he is the primary author of packer.nvim and has contributed Rust tooling for educational compiler IRs, demonstrating fluency across Lua, Rust, and research codebases. Based in Cambridge, MA, he brings both academic depth and production-minded software craftsmanship to robotics problems. An underappreciated detail: his work spans from low-level motion-control prototypes to developer tooling, reflecting a rare blend of lab robotics and open-source infrastructure.
12 years of coding experience
1 year of employment as a software developer
MLWGSDoctor of Philosophy (PhD), Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Computer Science at Cornell UniversityBachelor of Science (BS), Mathematics and Computer Science, Bachelor of Science (BS), Mathematics and Computer Science at University of Virginia
German, Latin, English
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
0answers
0questions
Github Skills (14)
plugin-development10
neovim10
lua10
compiler-design10
rust10
package-manager10
intermediate-language10
intermediate-code10
control-flow10
control-flow-graph10
programming-language9
compiler-compiler9
git9
compiler9
Programming languages (29)
Github contributions (5)
wbthomason/packer.nvim
Nov 2017 - Jan 2023
A use-package inspired plugin manager for Neovim. Uses native packages, supports Luarocks dependencies, written in Lua, allows for expressive config
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:242 reviews, 500 commits, 247 PRs in 5 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Wil appears to be the primary developer of this Neovim plugin manager, with a focus on implementing the plugin's core functionality. They were responsible for translating and adapting code from `plug.vim` to the new `plague.nvim` system. The user also worked on the plugin's architecture, writing the core functions, the installer and updater, as well as features for command and keybind handling.
lualuarocksneovimnvimplugin-manager
sampsyo/bril
Sep 2019 - Sep 2019
an educational compiler intermediate representation
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:27 commits, 3 PRs, 1 comment in 16 days
Contributions summary:Wil contributed to the development of an educational compiler intermediate representation (IR) in Rust. Their work includes creating the `bril-rs` project and implementing core components like basic block analysis. The user designed and implemented data structures for representing the IR, including types, instructions, and a program structure, using `serde` for JSON serialization/deserialization. Further development focused on control flow graph (CFG) construction and integration within the project.
compilerbrilprogramming-language
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