Committers blog post (#70)

* Add committers celebration post

* Add image for committer celebration post

Author: swoods-nv

_posts/2025-04-24-welcome-new-committers.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Welcome Our Newest Slang Committers!"
+date: 2025-04-24 17:00:00
+categories: [ "blog" ]
+tags: [slang]
+author: "Shannon Woods, NVIDIA, Slang Working Group Chair"
+image: /images/posts/slang-celebration.webp
+human_date: "April 24, 2025"
+---
+
+# Welcome Our Newest Slang Committers!
+
+We're thrilled to celebrate two outstanding members of the Slang community who have recently become committers: fairywreath and juliusikkala! Their elevation to committer status recognizes their significant contributions to Slang and their ongoing commitment to improving the shader programming ecosystem.
+
+## Meet Our New Committers
+
+### fairywreath
+fairywreath has demonstrated exceptional expertise in cross-platform shader development and advanced GPU features. Their contributions have significantly expanded Slang's capabilities:
+
+- **Advanced GPU Features**: Implemented cooperative matrix support, subgroup operations, and shader intrinsics, enabling more powerful GPU computations
+- **Cross-Platform Support**: Added crucial features for Metal and WGSL targets, including wave operations and structured buffer support
+- **Graphics Pipeline Enhancement**: Contributed mesh shader improvements, SPIRV debugging capabilities, and floating-point pack/unpack intrinsics
+
+Their work has been particularly impactful in making Slang more powerful and consistent across different graphics APIs and hardware platforms.
+
+### juliusikkala
+juliusikkala has made substantial contributions across multiple areas of Slang, demonstrating deep technical expertise in compiler development and language design. Their work has significantly improved Slang's capabilities in several key areas:
+
+- **Language Enhancement**: Implemented the `defer` statement, providing developers with more powerful control flow options, and added support for specialization constants in compute shader thread configurations
+- **Cross-Platform Compatibility**: Improved GLSL compatibility and SPIR-V output, making Slang more reliable across different graphics APIs
+- **Compiler Robustness**: Fixed critical issues in generic specialization, optimization, and type handling, enhancing the compiler's reliability and performance
+
+Their consistent attention to detail and commitment to code quality has helped make Slang more robust and feature-rich for all users.
+
+## Why Committers Matter
+
+Committers play a crucial role in the Slang ecosystem. They help review code, mentor new contributors, and shape the future direction of the project. 
+
+## Join the Slang Community
+
+Interested in becoming a Slang committer? The path to becoming a committer starts with getting involved in the community. Visit our [Community Page](https://shader-slang.com/community) to learn more.
+
+Welcome again to our new committers, and thank you to all our community members who make Slang better every day!
+