Allison Thackston

Allison Thackston leads a Planner Reasoning team at Waymo, solving some of the toughest problems in autonomous driving technology. Prior to working at Waymo, she worked at Nuro and held the position of Engineering Lead and Manager of the Shared Autonomy Robotics team at Toyota Research Institute. Thackston has also worked as the Lead Manipulation Researcher/Project Manager at Toyota Partner Robotics Group where she investigated robust task and motion planning manipulation strategies in unstructured environments. Before that, she was the Lead Engineer for Robotic Perception on Robonaut 2, the first humanoid robot on the International Space Station. Thackston has degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.