PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Neil David McKay

Also known as Neil D. McKay, Neil McKay, NDM

Neil McKay is a staff research engineer at General Motors Research whose 1992 paper with Paul Besl on registering 3-D shapes described the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm. After a doctorate in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan under Kang Shin in 1985, he joined General Motors Research and published papers with Shin on minimum-time and robust trajectory planning for robotic manipulators. ICP went on to find broad applications in robotics, medical imaging and computer vision. He taught computer graphics at the University of Michigan in 1996 and wrote the Tk3D extensions for large numeric arrays and 3D graphics, updated in August 2002. He works in the Manufacturing Systems Research lab at General Motors Research and Development and is the original author of Rtcl, which embeds an R interpreter into Tcl.

Now at
General Motors Research
Badges

Timeline

  1. 1980–1985

    A Michigan doctorate under Shin

    He earns a B.S. in electrical engineering at the University of Rochester in 1980 and an M.S. in electrical and computer engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1982. He completes a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan in 1985, with Kang G. Shin as his advisor.

  2. May 1985

    Staff engineer at GM Research

    In May 1985, he joins the Computer Science Department of General Motors Research labs as a Staff Research Engineer. His work there covers control of mobile robots, control and calibration of robot manipulators, computer vision system calibration and computer graphics.

  3. June 1985

    Minimum-time control of manipulators

    In June 1985, he and Kang G. Shin publish "Minimum-Time Control of Robotic Manipulators with Geometric Path Constraints" in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. His 1985 Ph.D. thesis is titled "Minimum-Cost Control of Robotic Manipulators with Geometric Path Constraints".

  4. December 1987

    Planning under payload uncertainty

    In December 1987, he and Kang G. Shin publish "Robust Trajectory Planning for Robotic Manipulators Under Payload Uncertainties" in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.

  5. 1992

    The ICP registration paper

    In 1992, he and Paul J. Besl publish "A Method for Registration of 3-D Shapes" in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, describing the iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm. ICP goes on to find broad applications in robotics, medical imaging and computer vision. The two are also named as inventors on US patent 5,715,166, "Apparatus for the Registration of Three-Dimensional Shapes".

  6. 1996

    Teaching graphics at Michigan

    In the fall of 1996, he teaches computer graphics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

  7. August 2002

    Tk3D for numeric arrays and 3D

    In August 2002, Tk3D, his collection of Tcl/Tk extensions for manipulating large numeric arrays and generating 3D graphic displays, is updated. The collection contains five packages, Tns, Vtd, Fct, Fctr and Tnsph, and his employer allows him to release it as open source code.

  8. By 2012

    Manufacturing lab and Rtcl

    By 2012, he works in the Manufacturing Systems Research lab at General Motors Research and Development. He is also the original author of Rtcl, a Tcl extension that embeds an R interpreter into Tcl; R is a free version of Bell Labs' S language for statistical computing.

Career

  1. Since 1985General Motors ResearchStaff Research Engineer
  2. 1996University of Michigan

Education

  1. 1985University of MichiganPhD
  2. 1982Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteM.S.
  3. 1980University of RochesterB.S.

From the biography.

  1. Universities had a net outflow of 2,068 moves in AI careersIncludes University of Michigan. Our estimates of career flows and median h-index across universities and companies in AI, including the role of joint appointments and earlier academic jobs.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Michigan. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. Universities keep AI researchers for a median of 6 years, compared with 2 years at frontier labsIncludes University of Michigan. Across 15,811 dated work stays (6,529 people), median role tenure runs from 6 years at universities to 2 years at frontier labs. We compare all five organization types, starting decades from the 1970s to the 2020s, and the organizations that keep people longest.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Michigan. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Neil David McKay yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Neil McKay's Curriculum Vitae web.eecs.umich.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Point-set registration - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Iterative closest point — Grokipedia grokipedia.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Neil McKay - Tcler's Wiki wiki.tcl-lang.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. TK3D - Tcler's Wiki wiki.tcl-lang.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Rtcl - Tcler's Wiki wiki.tcl-lang.org. Checked 22 October 2026.