Will J. Tomlinson Takes the Helm of SAIL, Bringing Industry Knowledge to Expand Services

BY GINA MANTICA

Will J. Tomlinson will lead faculty members into a new era of research convergence. As Director of the Software & Application Innovation Lab (SAIL), Tomlinson will elevate SAIL’s software development within and beyond Boston University. He will develop a diverse, resilient culture that researchers leverage to advance their projects and deploy their innovations at production-level quality.

Tomlinson’s engineering expertise and commitment to community-building will help SAIL expand its services and support widely. He brings over 10 years of industry knowledge and a breadth of research and development experience to the Hariri Institute. “On top of his excellent technical skills, he brings strong people and management skills,” said Eric Kolaczyk, the Director of the Hariri Institute, “We’re absolutely delighted he chose to lead SAIL.”

As a kid, Tomlinson had a natural interest in taking stuff apart and putting it back together. But, he didn’t realize engineering was a possible career path until his school counselors recognized his talent for math and science. “I tried out engineering on their recommendations, and it ended up growing into a passion,” said Tomlinson.

Tomlinson pursued his passion for engineering research throughout college, by completing his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University, a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) and his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University. Tomlinson later went on to receive his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Northeastern University, where his dissertation research focused on wireless communications. Here he created a system that used electrical current to enable data transmission between digital medical devices, by using the human body as a communication medium. Tomlinson loves projects that combine product development and research and was a Principal Engineer leading the Embedded and Communication Systems Group, at Draper Laboratory, prior to joining the Hariri Institute. “Will has much more experience on the hardware side of things than the rest of the team does right now,” said Vidya Akavoor, a Software Engineer at SAIL, “I think he can bring in projects in areas that SAIL has never explored before.”

As Director, Tomlinson is building upon SAIL’s technical competencies and expanding the team’s services. SAIL excels in supporting software engineering projects on privacy and security, data science, and digital health. Tomlinson is working on internal research and development to create an infrastructure that supports more projects in emerging research areas, like artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy and edge computing. “I’m excited to help build up an infrastructure that creates additional opportunities across the university for research convergence and collaboration,” he said.

His “crawl, walk, run” approach that focuses on improving research and development practices prior to rapid growth, informed by his industry experience, will provide SAIL with the foundation it needs to continue to expand its support of researchers. “I want to make sure that there is resiliency in place to deal with the changes that come,” said Tomlinson, “When we do want to grow it should be smooth SAIL-ing.”

Tomlinson also aims to improve the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) recruitment pipeline as Director, by setting clear goals around hiring diverse talent as SAIL’s staff grows. His experiences as a child, unaware of engineering career paths, inspire him to help others enter the field. “I look forward to Will expanding and diversifying the dimensions and impact of our collaborations both inside and outside of BU,” said Arezoo Sadeghi, a Software Engineer at SAIL.

SAIL is unique in that it offers professional-level software development within an academic environment. Now, SAIL has a leader at the helm with not only exceptional industry experience, but also proven leadership and communication skills, to ensure this level of quality continues as the team’s services grow.  “I really want to ensure that the culture of SAIL is something that people aspire to emulate and that researchers want to use to advance their projects,” said Tomlinson.

The Hariri Institute is planning a “Meet the SAIL Director” Event for the BU community. Click here to sign up for our mailing list and get more details delivered to your inbox.