Hi, I’m [wɪl mɛɹəl] (I typically go by “Will” despite “William” on my publications). Feel free to contact me at willm[æt]nyu.edu.
If I wasn’t doing NLP/ML research, I’d probably be studying medieval history and spending my days reading dead languages like Latin, Old Norse, and Old English. See some translations from these languages on my blog.
I’m a big proponent of walking as a form of everyday mindfulness and to experience different cities. Seattle seems to prefer hiking, which I’m also down with, especially to locations of historical interest.
I play pick-up basketball and the classic video games Age of Empires II/IV. I also used to make video games and Minecraft mods for fun. And, oh, my friends and I used to have a somewhat cringe-worthy YouTube channel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Writing
- Origin of the Navajo code talkers
- Jórsalafari: historical analysis of the Norwegian Crusade as a viking raid
- The history of Minecraft: how a Swedish indie game came to dominate the world
- Dante++: A chapter extending Inferno to the age of Big Data™ and AI
- Northern Origins: Chapter 1 of an epic that I started during COVID-19
There’s more writing on my blog.