Like many here, I’ll most remember Ilmo for being simultaneously brilliant and kind, in equally massive measures of both. Plus a lot of coffee, skateboards, beautiful presentations, and embeddings. I didn’t even know what embeddings were until Ilmo excitedly brought them up one day at lunch. I still don’t fully understand the math, but he was so passionate about something so complicated, and he explained it so clearly that his enthusiasm was infectious. We had so many amazing, nerdy, exciting lunch (and coffee!) conversations about everything: research (both at work and not), sci-fi, virtual reality, R, legos, parenting boys, and on and on.

I feel like Ilmo was a teacher at heart: he loved figuring out interesting things and then explaining them beautifully, eloquently, and enthusiastically to other people. He taught me R, he taught me how to use the espresso machines at Facebook, and he taught me how to be a better researcher.

Ilmo, you’re irreplaceable, and I miss you!

Brian Perone