Yoky Matsuoka
Yoky Matsuoka

Yoky Matsuoka, the former University of Washington computer science professor who rejoined Google with its $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest last year, is now leaving the search company for Twitter, according to a report by The Verge overnight, citing unnamed sources.

Matsuoka’s expertise in robotics raises interesting questions about what she’ll be doing at Twitter. Her role hasn’t been announced, but we’ve contacted Matsuoka and the company to confirm the report and get more details. Update: Matsuoka confirmed the news that she will be joining the company, saying in a tweet that she will be serving as Twitter’s Vice President of Technology and Analytics.

A past MacArthur Genius Award winner, Matsuoka was Google’s head of innovation before joining Nest as the learning thermostat company’s vice president of technology.

Matsuoka is credited with creating the modern robotic hand, seeking replicate the human hand as much as possible. She focused on the intersection of people and machines during her tenure at the University of Washington, directing the Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, funded by the National Science Foundation.

The Verge reports that Dropcam co-founder Greg Duffy, who joined Google with Nest’s acquisition of Dropcam last June, is also leaving the company.

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