I’m Wil Thomason, a second-year PhD student in computer science at Cornell. My primary research interests are in robotics, though I’m also interested in programming languages, algorithms, machine learning, and interdisciplinary efforts among these areas.

Research

I’m interested in algorithms for efficient cooperation in heterogeneous multi-agent scenarios - in particular, for ad hoc teams. I want teams of humans and arbitrary robotic systems to be able to work together in a manner which both “feels” natural and is efficient and effective.

Currently, I work with Professor Ross Knepper on projects related to situated gestural understanding, contextual language understanding, and multi-agent planning.

For more about my research, please see my publication and presentation list.

News

• I presented my workshop paper “Exploiting Heterogeneity in Robot Teams Through a Formalism of Capabilities” at RSS 2017 in the workshop on Heterogeneity and Diversity for Resilience in Multi-Robot Systems (July 2017)
• I was awarded the NDSEG Fellowship (April 2017)
• I was awarded the NSF GRFP Fellowship (March 2017)
• I presented my paper “Zero-Shot Learning for Unfamiliar Gesture Recognition” at ISER 2016 (October 2016)
• I presented my workshop paper “Recognizing Unfamiliar Gestures for Human-Robot Interaction through Zero-Shot Learning” at RSS 2016 in the 2nd Workshop on Model Learning for Human-Robot Communication (June 2016)
• My paper “Zero-Shot Learning for Unfamiliar Gesture Recognition” was accepted to ISER 2016 (May 2016)

Teaching

• TA for Foundations of Robotics, Cornell University, Professor Ross Knepper (Fall 2016)
• Head TA for Introduction to Computing Using Python, Cornell University, Professor Walker White (Fall 2015)
• TA for a multitude of undergraduate courses at UVa {Program and Data Representation, Operating Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Programming Languages} (Fall 2013 to Spring 2015)

Outreach

• I have taught 7th and 8th grade girls about state machines and programming at Cornell’s Expanding your Horizons conference (Spring 2016 and Spring 2017)

Departmental Service

• I help run the CS department colloquium talks
• I coordinate the Cornell CS PhD Mentor program

Links

This site contains references to my CV, a list of my publications and presentations, descriptions of a selection of my projects, my (infrequently updated) blog, and my Github profile.

Contact

• wbthomason ( at ) {my department, abbr.}.{my university}.edu
• {firstname}(dot){lastname}@{Google’s mail service}
• Twitter: @wilthomason
• Github: wbthomason
• Skype: Request via email