William Cutler

Background

About William Cutler

I am a 5th-year Honors student at Northeastern University (NEU) studying two fields that deeply interest me: Computer Science and Physics. What I love most about them is that I learn new ways of understanding and tinkering with amazingly complex and impactful systems, both natural (physics) and artificial (CS). I recently had such an opportunity as an SDE co-op for Amazon Robotics. There, over the course of 8 months, I designed, implemented, and rolled out multiple improvements to dozens of Amazon Sortation Centers worldwide. I also uncovered and solved long-standing bugs that noticeably affected performance. The system is fascinating: each robotic sortation center is a complex, carefully orchestrated symphony of moving drive units, packages, robotic arms, and associates. It was exciting to be working at the center of it all. Outside of software development, I am continually on the lookout for new technologies and ideas that combine CS and physics. Over the past year, I became increasingly interested Quantum Computing since it lies at the heart of my combined major and is at an exciting stage in its development. I’m fortunate to now contribute to this field via research in Quantum ML and as a TA for Qubit x Qubit’s summer camp for middle and high school students. Concurrently, I have enjoyed giving back to my university and my peers by serving as a tutor for the introductory computer science and physics classes. I want to see my fellow students succeed, and I take pleasure in learning new ways of thinking about or explaining the topics being studied. From my study of computer science, I have developed a passion for devising elegant software solutions and an appreciation for clean, well-documented code. From physics, I fell in love with the complex systems that define our universe along with the research and modeling techniques we use to understand them. I admire the problem-solving, experimentation, perseverance, and creativity these fields demand, and I am excited to see what the future holds for me as a part of them.