Thomas Wills II

Thomas Wills II (2024, NY) serves as the Communications Manager for the United States Presidential Scholars Foundation. In this role, Thomas executes comprehensive strategies to elevate the Foundation's brand visibility, producing digital graphics, newsletters, and podcasts to support programming and alumni engagement. As part of his digital strategy work, he also manages the website you're reading right now!

Currently a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), Thomas is pursuing a combined BS/MS degree in Computer Engineering. With the goal of becoming a System on Chip (SoC) and Design Verification (DV) engineer, his academic work actively supports this aspiration; he serves as a researcher investigating early detection of covert software threats in Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures and is currently collaborating to translate NoC simulations from MATLAB to Python to enhance accessibility. He also supports his peers as a Course Developer and Teaching Assistant for introductory engineering courses.

Beyond his technical studies, Thomas is deeply committed to social entrepreneurship and service. He is the Executive Director of the Lunch Rescue Initiative, a non-profit organization he leads to fund and sustain grassroots food waste programs in public schools. Additionally, he is a Lead Developer at Business Casual Studios, where he manages agile teams and empowers indie developers. Guided by the principles of community, impact, and passion, Thomas actively seeks to bridge the gap between engineering innovation and meaningful social change.