Minchen Li
Office 228 Smith Hall
Email minchenl@andrew.cmu.edu
Department
Computer Science Department
Administrative Support Person
Christina Contreras
Research Interests
Graphics
Machine Learning
Robotics
Scientific Computing
Biography
Minchen is an assistant professor at CMU CSD and formerly an assistant adjunct professor at UCLA's Department of Mathematics. He completed his Ph.D. at the SIG Center for Computer Graphics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained a postdoctoral researcher. His Ph.D. dissertation featured the Incremental Potential Contact (IPC) method, a breakthrough in frictional contact simulation in nonlinear solid dynamics. Minchen's research has won multiple awards, including the 2021 ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. He has completed four internships at Adobe Research and earned an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on advancing physical simulation in visual computing, manufacturing, and robotics, aiming for robustness, efficiency, accuracy, and versatility through methods that combine numerical analysis, high-performance computing, and machine learning.
Research/Teaching Statement
The efficacy of solid and fluid simulation methods in the evolving landscape of visual computing, manufacturing, and robotics industries is fundamentally determined by robustness, efficiency, accuracy, and versatility. However, achieving a harmonious balance among these crucial characteristics remains an open challenge. Minchen's research is committed to advancing the frontiers of physical simulation by striving for unprecedented levels of performance in all these areas, leveraging a comprehensive approach that combines numerical analysis, high-performance computing, and machine learning.