Will Corcoran is a Research Coordinator at the Ethereum Foundation, best known for his central role in orchestrating the foundation's strategic initiative to transition the Ethereum network to post-quantum (PQ) cryptography. He facilitates collaboration between numerous development teams to ensure the future security of the protocol against threats from quantum computers. ^{[1] [2]}

Career

Architecture

Prior to entering the blockchain and web3 industry, Will Corcoran established a career as an architect, accumulating over 15 years of professional experience in that field. His background in structuring complex systems provided a foundation for his later work in coordinating large-scale technical projects. ^[2]​

Ethereum Foundation

Driven by an interest in decentralized technology, Corcoran transitioned into the web3 space and joined the Ethereum Foundation as a Research Coordinator. In this capacity, he is responsible for organizing core research and development efforts, managing key technical meetings, tracking project milestones, and ensuring clear communication between the various independent research and client development teams working on the Ethereum protocol. His work is publicly visible through his management of agendas and notes for technical meetings within the Ethereum project management repository on GitHub. ^[2]​

Role in Post-Quantum Cryptography

Will Corcoran is a central figure in the coordination of Ethereum's post-quantum (PQ) defense initiative. This effort was elevated to a top strategic priority for the Ethereum Foundation in early 2026 to address the long-term security threat that fault-tolerant quantum computers pose to the elliptic curve cryptography currently securing the network. ^[3] [[web.ourcryptotalk.com/news/ethereum-foundation-launches-post-quantum-team][Our Crypto Talk on PQ Team launch]]

On January 24, 2026, Ethereum researcher Justin Drake publicly detailed the formal launch of the PQ team, backed by an initial $2 million in funding for competitions and development, and identified Corcoran as a key member. His specific mandate is "PQ devnet coordination" and managing the "weekly post-quantum interop calls." These meetings are critical for facilitating collaborative technical development across the many teams building implementations for Ethereum's future post-quantum consensus layer. His coordination ensures that the various independent client implementations remain interoperable and that proposed upgrades are rigorously tested for compatibility, performance, and security in a simulated network environment. ^{[3] [4]}

In his coordination role, Corcoran works with a wide range of development teams, including:

• Pioneer implementation teams such as Zeam, Ream Labs, PierTwo, Ethlambda, and the Gean client.
• Established consensus client teams adapting their software, including Lighthouse, Grandine, and Prysm.

His work is part of a broader team effort alongside other notable figures in the Ethereum research community, including Justin Drake, Thomas Coratger (designated PQ team lead), Antonio Sanso (lead of the "All Core Devs Post Quantum breakout calls"), Emile, and Alex Hicks. Corcoran's organizational work is evidenced by his public GitHub activity, where he creates and manages the agendas and resources for the technical PQ interop meetings. ^{[3] [4] [2]}

Other Contributions and Interests

Corcoran's GitHub activity indicates an interest in several other technical areas within the Ethereum ecosystem. He maintains forks of repositories related to the specification and standardization of performance metrics for Ethereum nodes, including beacon-metrics for the consensus layer and execution-metrics for the execution layer. Additionally, he has forked the ethproofs repository, which is focused on the application of zero-knowledge proof technology, or "SNARKifying Ethereum," suggesting an involvement or interest in advancing privacy and scalability solutions for the protocol. ^[2]

Distinction from Will Corcoran (Software Engineer)

A separate individual named Will Corcoran is also a key contributor to the Ethereum Foundation's post-quantum security efforts, serving as a Software Engineer and Researcher. This has led to some public confusion, as both individuals are involved in the same high-profile initiative. The software engineer has a distinct background and set of responsibilities focused on hands-on implementation and protocol development. ^[1]

Education and Early Career

This Will Corcoran holds both a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Computer Science from Stanford University, where he pursued a specialization in cryptography. He likely completed his degrees around 2021 through a co-terminal program. His early industry experience includes a software engineering internship at Meta (formerly Facebook) during the summer of 2020. Following his graduation, he worked at Coinbase from approximately June 2021 to October 2023. At Coinbase, he was a software engineer focused on developing backend services for cryptocurrency trading and staking infrastructure, where he gained significant experience with languages like Golang and Rust in a large-scale production setting. ^[1]

Role at Ethereum Foundation

In November 2023, this Will Corcoran joined the Ethereum Foundation as a Software Engineer and member of the Post-Quantum (PQ) defense team, unofficially nicknamed "Scary-cat." His role is centered on the research, development, and implementation of post-quantum cryptographic primitives to "future-proof" the Ethereum network. His focus is on the direct engineering work required to build and test quantum-resistant systems. ^[1]

His primary contributions include:

• Algorithm Implementation: Actively building and testing open-source Rust implementations of leading PQC algorithms, including CRYSTALS-Kyber for key encapsulation mechanisms and CRYSTALS-Dilithium for digital signatures.
• EIP Contribution: He is a contributor to EIP-7706, a proposed Ethereum Improvement Proposal that aims to introduce a new transaction type to enable the creation of quantum-resistant accounts. His public GitHub repositories contain proof-of-concept implementations and prototypes related to this EIP, demonstrating his active role in its validation and development.

This work is foundational for the eventual integration of quantum-resistant cryptography into the Ethereum protocol, complementing the coordination efforts led by the other Will Corcoran. ^[1]