Zoran joined the CSE faculty in the summer of 1999. He received a Sc.B. with Honors in Computer Science from
Brown University in 1991, M.S. in Computer Science in 1993 and a
Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1999 from Carnegie Mellon University. His
Ph.D. dissertation research focused on the automatic synthesis and transformation of realistic character
animation. His thesis also involved numerous performances of embarrassing acts.
He has also held research positions at Sun Microsystems and Justsystem
Pittsburgh Research Center and
University of California at Berkeley. Zoran's research
interests lie primarily in computer graphics, especially in character animation, motion editing, physically
based modeling and modeling/simulation of natural phenomena. He is also interested in nonlinearly
constrained optimization, motion planning and biomechanics.
Zoran enjoys spending his free time
outdoors. He is also an avid tanguero and a
lindy hopper.
You will find a more official short bio
here.
Awards
Selected Publications
"Subgroup Robustness Grows On Trees: An Empirical Baseline Investigation."
with Gardner, J. and & Schmidt, L.. in
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 35, 9939-9954. 2022.
[
pdf]
"Exploring the Role of Local and Global Explanations in Recommender Systems."
with Radensky, M., Downey, D., Lo, K., & Weld, D. S. in
CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts (pp. 1-7) 2022.
[
project]
"Modernizing Training in Psychotherapy Competencies With Adaptive Learning Systems: Proof of Concept."
with Renn, B. N., Areán, P. A., Raue, P. J., Aisenberg, E., Friedman, E. C. in
Research on social work practice, 31(1), 90-100. 2021.
[
pdf]
"Integrated morphoelectric and transcriptomic classification of cortical GABAergic cells."
with Gouwens, N., et al. in
Cell, 183(4), 935-953. 2020.
[
pdf]
"Building de novo cryo-electron microscopy structures collaboratively with citizen scientists."
with Khatib, F., et al. in
PLoS Biology, 17(11), e3000472. 2019.
[
pdf]
"De novo protein design by citizen scientists."
with Koepnick, B., et al. in
Nature, 570(7761), 390-394. 2019.
[
pdf]
"Automatic generation of problems and explanations for an intelligent algebra tutor."
with O’Rourke, E., Butler, E., Díaz Tolentino, A. in
20th International Conference, AIED 2019, Proceedings, Part I 20 (pp. 383-395). 2019.
[
pdf]
"An analysis and evaluation of the WeFold collaborative for protein structure prediction and its
pipelines in CASP11 and CASP12."
with Keasar, C. et. al in
Scientific reports, 8(1), 1-18. 2018.
[
pdf]
"Automatic diagnosis of students' misconceptions in k-8 mathematics."
with Feldman, M. Q., Cho, J. Y., Ong, M., Gulwani, S., & Andersen, E. in
Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-12). 2018.
[
pdf]
"Empowering families facing english literacy challenges to jointly engage in computer programming."
with Banerjee, R., et al. in
Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13). 2018.
[
pdf]
"A framework for computer-aided design of educational domain models."
with Butler, E., Torlak, E. in
Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation: 19th International Conference, VMCAI (pp.
138-160). 2018.
[
pdf]
"Collaborative problem solving in an open-ended scientific discovery game."
with Bauer, A. in
Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction, 1(CSCW), 1-21. 2017.
[
pdf]
"Dragon architect: open design problems for guided learning in a creative computational thinking sandbox
game."
with Bauer, A., Butler, E. in
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (pp. 1-6). 2017.
[
pdf]
"Synthesizing interpretable strategies for solving puzzle games."
with Butler, E., Torlak, E. in
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (pp. 1-10). 2017.
[
pdf]
"Analysis of Problem-Solving Behavior in Open-Ended Scientific-Discovery Game Challenges."
with Bauer, A., Flatten, J. in
International Educational Data Mining Society. 2017.
[
pdf]
"Where to add actions in human-in-the-loop reinforcement learning."
with Mandel, T., Liu, Y. E., Brunskill, E. in
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Vol. 31, No. 1). 2017.
[
pdf]
"Crowdsourcing accurate and creative word problems and hints."
with Chen, Y., Mandel, T., Liu, Y. E. in
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (Vol. 4, pp. 12-21). 2016.
[
pdf]
"Efficient Bayesian Clustering for Reinforcement Learning."
with Mandel, T., Liu, Y. E., Brunskill, E. in
IJCAI (pp. 1830-1838). 2016.
[
pdf]
"Power to the People: Addressing Big Data Challenges in Neuroscience by Creating a New Cadre of Citizen
Neuroscientists"
with Jane Roskamps in
Neuron 92 (3) 2016. [
pdf]
"Determining crystal structures through crowdsourcing and coursework"
with S Horowitz, B Koepnick, R Martin, A Tymieniecki, A A Winburn, S Cooper, J Flatten, D Rogawski, N
Koropatkin, T Hailu, N Jain, P Koldewey, L Ahlstrom, M Chapman, A Sikkema, M Skiba, F Maloney, F Beinlich,
Foldit Players, D Baker, F Khatib, J Bardwell in
Nature Communications 7, 2016. [
article]
"Empowering Children To Rapidly Author Games and Animations Without Writing Code"
with R Banerjee, J Yip, KJ Lee in
Proceedings of the The 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children 2015.
[
article]
"A Framework for Parameterized Design of Rule Systems Applied to Algebra"
with Eric Butler, Emina Torlak in
International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (320-326) 2016.
[
pdf]
"Proactive Sensing for Improving Hand Pose Estimation" with Dun-Yu Hsiao, Min Sun, Christy Ballweber,
Seth Cooper in
Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2348-2352) 2016.
[
pdf]
"Brain Points: A Deeper Look at a Growth Mindset Incentive Structure for an Educational Game"
with Eleanor O'Rourke, Erin Peach, Carol S Dweck in
Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale (41-50) 2016.
[
pdf]
"Offline evaluation of online reinforcement learning algorithms"
with Travis Mandel, Y Liu, Emma Brunskill in
Proceedings of the Thirtieth Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2016/2/21.
[
pdf]
"Crowdsourcing Accurate and Creative Word Problems and Hints"
with Yvonne Chen, Travis Mandel, Yun-En Liu in
AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP) 2016.
[
pdf]
"Nanocrafter: Design and Evaluation of a DNA Nanotechnology Game"
with Barone, J., et al. in
Foundations of Digital Games. 2015.
[
pdf]
"Approaches for teaching computational thinking strategies in an educational game"
with Aaron Bauer, Eric Butler in
Blocks and Beyond Workshop (Blocks and Beyond), (121-123) 2015.
[
pdf]
"Interactive control of diverse complex characters with neural networks"
with Igor Mordatch, Kendall Lowrey, Galen Andrew, Emanuel V Todorov in
Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) (3132-40) 2015.
[
pdf]
"Personalized Mathematical Word Problem Generation" with Oleksandr Polozov, Eleanor O’Rourke,
Adam Smith, Luke Zettlemoyer, Sumit Gulwani, in
IJCAI 2015/6/22. [
pdf]
"Large-Scale Educational Campaigns" with Yun-En Liu, Christy Ballweber, Eleanor O’Rourke, Eric
Butler, Phonraphee Thummaphan, to appear in
ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interactions (TOCHI), 2015.
[
pdf]
"Automatic Game Progression Design through Analysis of Solution Features"
with Eric Butler, Erik Andersen, Adam M. Smith, Sumit Gulwani, to appear in
Proceedings of Conference on Human factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2015), 2015.
[
pdf]
"A Framework for Automatically Generating Interactive Instructional Scaffolding"
with Eleanor O’Rourke, Erik Andersen, Sumit Gulwani to appear in
Proceedings of Conference on Human factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2015), 2015.
[
pdf]
"The Queue Method: Handling Delay, Heuristics, Prior Data, and Evaluation in Bandits"
with Travis Mandel, Yun-En Liu, Emma Brunskill, in
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) 2015. [
pdf]
"WeFold: a coopetition for protein structure prediction"
with George A. Khoury et al. and Foldit Players
Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics (2014). [
pdf]
"Trading Off Scientific Knowledge and User Learning with Multi-Armed Bandits"
with Yun-En Liu, Travis Mandel, Emma Brunskill in
Educational Data Mining (EDM) 2014 [
pdf]
"Learning Individual Behavior in an Educational Game: A Data-Driven Approach"
with Seong-Jae Lee, Yun-En Liu in
Educational Data Mining (EDM) 2014 [
pdf]
"Generalizing Locomotion Style to New Animals with Inverse Optimal Regression"
with Kevin Wampler, Jovan Popović in
Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH) 2014 [
pdf] [
project]
"Offline Policy Evaluation Across Representations with Applications to Educational Games"
with Travis Mandel, Yun-En Liu, Sergey Levine, Emma Brunskill in
Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) 2014 [
pdf]
"Hint Systems May Negatively Impact Performance in Educational Games"
with Nell O’Rourke, Christy Ballwebber in
Learning at Scale 2014 (LAS 2014) [
pdf]
"Towards Automatic Experimentation of Educational Knowledge"
with Yun-En Liu, Travis Mandell, Emma Brunskill in
CHI 2014 [
pdf]
"Brain Points: A Growth Mindset Incentive Structure Boosts Persistence in an Educational Game"
with Nell O’Rourke, Kyla Haimovitz, Carol Dweck in
CHI 2014 [
pdf]
"A Mixed-Initiative Tool for Designing Level Progressions in Games"
with Eric Butler, Adam M. Smith, Yun-En Liu in
UIST 2013. [
pdf] [
video]
"Predicting Player Moves in an Educational Game: A Hybrid Approach"
with Yun-En Liu, Travis Mandel, Eric Butler, Erik Andersen, Eleanor O’Rourke and Emma Brunskill in
Educational Data Mining (EDM) 2013 [
pdf]
best paper nomination
"Automatic Redesign of Local Playspace Properties" with Aaron Bauer and Seth Cooper in
Proceedings of the Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2013)
[
pdf]
"Quantifying over Play: Constraining Undesirable Solutions in Puzzle Design"
with Adam M. Smith and Eric Butler in
Foundations of Digital Games 2013 [
pdf]
"The Effects of Age on Player Behavior in Educational Games"
with O’Rourke, E., Butler, E., Liu, Y. and Ballwebber, C. in
Foundations of Digital Games 2013 [
pdf]
"A Trace-based Framework for Analyzing and Synthesizing Educational Progressions"
with Erik Andersen and Sumit Gulwani in
Computer Human Interaction (CHI) 2013 [
pdf]
"Animal Locomotion Controllers from Scratch" with Kevin Wampler and Jovan Popović in
Computer Graphics Forum 2013 [
pdf]
"RRT-based game level analysis, visualization, and visual refinement"
with Aaron Bauer in
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-12)
[
pdf]
"Verification games: making verification fun" with Werner Dietl, Stephanie Dietzel, Michael D. Ernst,
Nathaniel Mote, Brian Walker, Seth Cooper, Timothy Pavlik, in
Proceedings of the 14th Workshop on Formal Techniques for Java-like Programs (42-9) 2012.
[
pdf]
"Evaluating Competitive Game Balance with Restricted Play"
with Alexander Jaffe, Alex Miller, Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu and Anna Karlin in
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-12)
[
pdf]
"A Case Study of Expressively Constrainable Level Design Automation Tools for a Puzzle Game"
with Adam M. Smith, Erik Andersen, Michael Mateas in
Foundations of Digital Games 2012 [
pdf]
"Contact-Invariant Optimization for Hand Manipulation" with Igor Mordatch and Emanuel Todorov in
Eurographics/ACM Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA 2012)
[
pdf]
"Discovery of Complex Behaviors through Contact-Invariant Optimization"
with Igor Mordatch and Emanuel Todorov in
ACM Transactions on Graphics (ACM SIGGRAPH 2012) [
pdf]
"Continuous Character Control with Low-Dimensional Embeddings"
with Sergey Levine, Jack M. Wang, Alexis Haraux, Vladlen Koltun in
ACM Transactions on Graphics (ACM SIGGRAPH 2012) [
pdf] [
project]
"The Impact of Tutorials on Games of Varying Complexity" with Erik Andersen, Eleanor O’Rourke,
Yun-En Liu, Richard Snider, Jeff Lowdermilk, David Truong, Seth Cooper in
CHI 2012
[project]
[pdf]
[related papers]
"Increased Diels-Alderase activity through backbone remodeling guided by Foldit players"
with Christopher B Eiben, Justin B Siegel, Jacob B Bale, Seth Cooper, Firas Khatib, Betty W Shen, Foldit
Players, Barry L Stoddard and David Baker in
Nature Biotechnology (2012)
[project]
[pdf]
"Nonlinear Inverse Reinforcement Learning with Gaussian Processes"
with Sergey Levine, Vladlen Koltun in
NIPS 2011 [
pdf] [
project]
"Space-Time Planning with Parameterized Locomotion Controllers"
with Sergey Levine, Yongjoon Lee, Vladlen Koltun in
ACM Transactions on Graphics 30 (3) [
pdf] [
video]
"Composite Control of Physically Simulated Characters", with Uldarico Muico, and Jovan Popović,
in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 30 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2011).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Algorithm discovery by protein folding game players" with Firas Khatib, Seth Cooper, Michael D.
Tyka, Kefan Xu, Ilya Makedon, David Baker, and Foldit Players in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America vol. 108 no. 47
18949-18953 (2011)
[
pdf] [
project]
"High-resolution structure of a retroviral protease folded as a monomer"
with Miroslaw Gilski, Maciej Kazmierczyk, Szymon Krzywda, Helena Zábranská, Seth Cooper, Firas Khatib, Frank
DiMaio, James Thompson, David Baker, Iva Pichová, and Mariusz Jaskolskia in
Acta Crystallographica D67, 907-914 [
pdf] [
project]
"Crystal structure of a monomeric retroviral protease solved by protein folding game players"
with Firas Khatib, Frank DiMaio, Foldit Contenders Group, Foldit Void Crushers Group, Seth Cooper, Maciej
Kazmierczyk, Miroslaw Gilski, Szymon Krzywda, Helena Zabranska, Iva Pichova, James Thompson, Mariusz
Jaskolski, David Baker in
Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 18, 1175-1177 (2011)
[
pdf] [
project]
"On the Harmfulness of Secondary Game Objectives" with Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Rich Snider, Roy
Szeto, Seth Cooper in
Foundations of Digital Games 2011 [
pdf]
"Analysis of Social Gameplay Macros in the Foldit Cookbook"
with Seth Cooper, Firas Khatib, Ilya Makedon, Hao Lu, Janos Barbero, David Baker, James Fogarty, Foldit
Players in
Foundations of Digital Games 2011 [
pdf] [
project]
"Feature-Based Projections for Effective Playtrace Analysis"
with Yun-En Liu, Erik Andersen, Rich Snider, Seth Cooper in
Foundations of Digital Games 2011 [
pdf]
"Placing a Value on Aesthetics in Online Casual Games" with Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Rich Snider,
Roy Szeto in
CHI 2011 [
pdf]
Best Paper Nomination
"PhotoCity: training experts at large-scale image acquisition through a competitive game"
with Kathleen Tuite, Noah Snavely, Dun-yu Hsiao, Nadine Tabing in
CHI 2011 [
pdf]
"Feature Construction for Inverse Reinforcement Learning", with Sergey Levine, Vladlen Koltun in
NIPS 2010 [
pdf]
"Motion Fields for Interactive Character Locomotion", with Yongjoon Lee, Kevin Wampler, Gilbert
Bernstein, Jovan Popović in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 29 Num. 5 (SIGGRAPH Asia 2010)
[
pdf] [
project]
"Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game", with Seth Cooper, Firas Khatib,
Adrien Treuille, Janos Barbero, Jeehyung Lee, Michael Beenen, Andrew Leaver-Fay, David Baker and Foldit
players, in
Nature 446 p. 756-760 (05 August 2010). [
pdf] [
project]
"Terrain-Adaptive Interactive Bipedal Locomotion Control", with Jia-Chi Wu in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 29 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2010)
[
pdf] [
project]
"Learning Behavior Styles with Inverse Reinforcement Learning", with Seong Jae Lee in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 29 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2010)
[
pdf] [
project]
"Character Animation in Two-Player Adversarial Games", with Kevin Wampler, Erik Andersen, Evan
Herbst, Yongjoon Lee, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 29 Num. 5 [
pdf] [
project]
"The Challenge of Designing Scientific Discovery Games", with Seth Cooper, Adrien Treuille, Janos
Barbero, Andrew Leaver-Fay, Kathleen Tuite, Firas Khatib, Alex Cho Snyder, Michael Beenen, David Salesin,
David Baker, in
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2010
[
pdf] [
project]
"Reconstructing the World in 3D: Bringing Games with a Purpose Outdoors", with Kathleen Tuite, Noah
Snavely, Dun-Yu Hsiao, Adam M. Smith, in
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2010
[
pdf] [
project]
"Gameplay Analysis through State Projection", with Erik Andersen, Yun-En Liu, Ethan Apter, François
Boucher-Genesse, in
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2010
[
pdf] [
project]
"Compact Character Controllers", with Yongjoon Lee and Seong Jae Lee, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 28 Num. 5 (SIGGRAPH Asia 2009).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Optimal Gait and Form for Animal Locomotion", with Kevin Wampler, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 28 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2009).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Contact-aware Nonlinear Control of Dynamic Characters", with Uldarico Muico, Yongjoon Lee, Jovan
Popović, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 28 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2009).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Near-optimal Character Animation with Continuous User Control," with Adrien Treuille and
Yongjoon Lee, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 26 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2007).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Active Learning for Real-Time Motion Controllers," with Seth Cooper and Aaron Hertzmann, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 26 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2007).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Model Reduction for Real-time Fluids," with Adrien Treuille and Andrew Lewis, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 25 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2006).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Continuum Crowds" with Adrien Treuille and Seth Cooper, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 25 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2006).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Dance reveals symmetry especially in young men" with Brown, W.M., Cronk, L., Grochow, K., Jacobson,
A., Liu, K., Trivers, R. in
Nature, Vol. 438 Num. 7071. [
project
[
pdf] [
paper] [
front cover] [
nature podcast]
"Composition of Complex Optimal Multi-Character Motions" with C. Karen Liu, Aaron Hertzmann in
ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2006.
[
pdf] [
project]
"Learning a correlated model of identity and pose-dependent body-shape variation for real-time
synthesis"
with Brett Allen, Brian Curless, Aaron Hertzmann, in
ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2006.
[
pdf] [
project]
"Learning Physics-based Motion Style with Inverse Nonlinear Optimization" with C. Karen Liu and
Aaron Hertzmann, in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 24 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2005).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Physically Based Rigging for Deformable Characters" with Steve Capell, Matthew Burkhart, Brian
Curless, Tom Duchamp, in
Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation.
[
pdf] [
project]
"Style-Based Inverse Kinematics"
with Keith Grochow, Steve L. Martin and Aaron Hertzmann in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 23 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2004).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Fluid Control using the Adjoint Method" with Adrien Treuille, Antoine McNamara, Jos Stam in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 23 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2004).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Momentum-based Parameterization of Dynamic Character Motion"
with Yeuhi Abe, C. Karen Liu, in
ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2004.
[
pdf] [
project]
"Keyframe Control of Smoke Simulations" with Adrien Treuille, Antoine McNamara, Jos Stam in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 22 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2003).[
pdf] [
project]
"Realistic Modeling of Bird Flight Animations" with Jia-Chi Wu in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 22 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2003).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Layered Acting for Character Animation" with Mira Dontcheva, Gary Yngve in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 22 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2003).
[
pdf] [
project]
"The Space of Human Body Shapes: reconstruction and parameterization from range scans" with
Brett Allen, Brian Curless in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 22 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2003).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Estimating Cloth Simulation Parameters from Video" with Kiran Bhat, Christopher Twigg, Jessica
Hodgins, Pradeep Khosla, Steven Seitz in
ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2003. [
pdf] [
project]
"A Sketching Interface for Articulated Figure Animation"
with James Davis, Maneesh Agrawala, Erika Chuang, David Salesin in
ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2003. [
pdf] [
project]
"Synthesis of Complex Dynamic Character Motion from Simple Animations"
with C. Karen Liu in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 21 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2002).
[
pdf] [
project]
"Articulated Body Deformation from Range Scan Data" with Brett Allen, Brian Curless in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 21 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2002).[
pdf] [
project]
"Interactive Skeleton-Driven Dynamic Deformations" with Steve Capell, Seth Green, Brian Curless,
Tom Duchamp in
ACM Transactions on Graphics Vol. 21 Num. 3 (SIGGRAPH 2002).[
pdf] [
project]
"A Multiresolution Framework for Dynamic Deformations" with Steve Capell, Seth Green, Brian
Curless, Tom Duchamp in
ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Computer Animation [
project]
"Interactive Manipulation of Rigid Body Simulations" with Jovan Popović, Steven Seitz, Michael
Erdmann, Andy Witkin in
Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH) 2000. [
pdf]
"Physically Based Motion Transformation" with Andy Witkin in
Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH) 1999. [
pdf] [
project]
"Motion Warping" with Andy Witkin in
Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH) 1995. [
pdf] [
project]
Research Projects and Interests
Large Scale Educational Campaigns.
Research in Serious Games.
We are developing new genre of science-centric serious games, including games that lead to scientific
discoveries in biochemistry with implications towards curing diseases, discovering vaccines, and
developing novel biofuels.
Reinforcement Learning for Optimal Learning Pathways.
Methods for Automatic Synthesis of Instructional Content and Leraning Progressions.
Past Research Projects and Interests
Synthesis of Natural Control Mechanisms.
We are investigating automatic methods for determining the fundamental control mechanisms that
give rise to a wide variety of animal locomotion. We are investigating human locomotion
control as well as natural controllers for quadrupeds and birds in flight.
Dynamics and Control Reduction. We are investigating control and model reduction techniques that will enable us to
automatically reduce the complexity of dynamic simulators. The same techniques should also allow
for custom-designed dynamics approximations tailored for specific dynamic control problems.
Reusable Motion Libraries.
Our goal is to give non-skilled computer users the ability to use computer animation as an
expressive medium. The fundamental paradigm behind our approach involves the creation of motion
libraries which can be easily mapped onto different characters, or modified to fit the needs of a
specific animation. We model the motion as an optimal dynamic process which allows us to preserve
dynamic properties of the animation during editing. This formulation also enables us to
intuitively edit high-level motion concepts such as the time and placement of footprints, length
and mass of various extremities or joint arrangement.
Control of Complex Dynamics.
We are developing methods to control complex dynamic behavior. We are working on control
techniques for natural phenomena such as smoke, water and cloth, as well as for complex actuated
dynamics of animals such as humans, birds, and various quadrupeds.
High-fidelity Digital Actors.
This research aims at creating synthetic humans that look and move realistically. We are
developing data driven methods to capture and reuse high-fidelity detailed dynamic motion of human
skin.
Modeling Dynamic Deformation of Flexible Objects.
We are developing models for interactive manipulation of flexible articulated body dynamics.
The emphasis of this projects are on realtime performance, dynamic character interaction, and
effective rigging of character dynamics.
Novel Interfaces for Computer Animation.
With the emergence of real-time motion capture systems we can use our whole body as a natural
interface for describing motion. We are also exploring traditional drawings as an intuitive
interface for rapid prototyping of computer animations.
Affiliations
Courses
Current Students
PhD
Josh Gardner
Past Students
Graduate
Aaron Bauer (Jane Street)
Rahul Banerjee (Google)
Zuoming Shi (Microsoft)
Travis Mandel (UW Hawaii faculty)
Uldarico Muico
Alex Polozov (Microsoft Research)
Eric Butler (McGraw Hill)
Yun-En Liu (Principal Scientist, Enlearn)
Nell O’Rourke (Northwestern faculty)
Igor Mordatch (Google Brain)
Erik Andersen (Cornell faculty)
Sergey Levine (UC Berkeley faculty)
Alex Jaffe, 2013 PhD (Spry Fox)
Kevin Wampler, 2012 PhD (Adobe Research)
Seth Cooper, 2011 PhD (Northeastern faculty)
winner ACM Dissertation Award
Yongjoon Lee, 2010 PhD (Bungie)
Seong Jae Lee, 2010 M.S. (Google)
Jia-Chi Wu, 2010 PhD (Apple)
Adrien Treuille 2008 PhD (CMU faculty, Streamlit founder)
Brett Allen, 2005 PhD (Google)
C. Karen Liu, 2005 PhD (Stanford faculty)
Antoine McNamara, 2004 M.S. (The Defender Assn)
Steve Capell, 2004 PhD (Havok)
Gary Yngve, 2003, M.S. (Facebook)
Mira Dontcheva, 2003 M.S. (Adobe Research)
Charles Gordon, 2001 M.S. (Amazon)
Postdocs
Adam Smith 2012-14 (UCSC faculty)
Sameer Agarwal (joint with Curless, Seitz, Google) 2007-09
Undergraduate
Mai Dang
Christian Lee
Emma Lynch
Stephen Sievers
Roy Szeto
Ethan Apter, 2010
Justin Irwen, 2009
Janos Barbero, 2009
Michael Beenen, 2009 (Amazon.com)
Josh Snyder
Alex Cho Snyder
Daniel Suskin
Andrew Yurowchak
Andrew Lewis, 2006 (Google)
Matthew Burkhart, 2005 (Google)
Ethel Evans, 2004
Yeuhi Abe, 2004 (PhD student, MIT)
Steve L. Martin, 2003 (PhD student, UC Berkeley)
Chris Fitzner, 2003
Matthew Chasan, 2003
Eugene Hsu, 2002 (PhD student, MIT)
Chris Twigg, 2002 (PhD student, CMU)
Dutch Meyer, 2002
Adam Kirk, 2001 (PhD student, UC Berkeley)
Kevin Audleman, 2000 (PhD student, Brown)
