Tom Shannon is a consultant and software developer at Thoughtworks, based in Chicago. Tom graduated from Carthage College with an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Physics. During undergraduate studies, Tom led several NASA funded research projects: building suborbital rocketry payloads, high powered rockets, and an earth observing nano-satellite.

As a part of the Salaf [Arabic: سلف , ancestor] (2020) project with Thoughtworks Arts, Tom contributed by training generative models, testing various machine learning neural networks - evaluating their performances and the differences in their output. He set up and trained models primarily on nomadic Arab non-western figures. He evaluated results and explained what the model did and why. This directly informed Nouf Aljowaysir’s work and next steps on the project.

Tom contributed to Perception iO by training emotional expression prediction models, software development, and researching potential eye-tracking technologies for the immersive film. Moving forward, Tom is interested in using new media techniques and responsive environments to explore and communicate social, economic, and cultural issues in society.