Our People

Leadership

Brandon Haworth

Director, GAIDG | Associate Professor, University of Victoria | Research Fellow, Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health | Editor-in-chief, Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society | Board Member and Director of Technical Development, Canada Comics Open Library

I work within the broad areas of Graphics, Simulation, Artificial Intelligence, and Human-Computer Interaction. My primary research focuses are diversity in crowds simulations, locomotion & biomechanical modelling in human steering, multi-agent reinforcement learning, and human-centric artificial intelligence in simulation and design. The applications of this research cut across several fields including gaming, film & animation, architecture, urban planning, predictive design, safety analysis, rehabilitation, assistive technology and more.

I am generally interested in the reduction of overhead (environmental, computational, and monetary costs), diversification (of representation and access), and democratization of artificial and augmented intelligence solutions for complex problems in graphics, animation, games, and design. Our group explores solutions to these complex problems by tackling both basic and applied research while synthesizing methods and ideas across several disciplines.

https://www.bhaworth.ca/

Professional Associations

Member ACM
Member Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society, CHCCS/SCDHM Special Interest Group within the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS)

Graduate Researchers

Kun Peng

PhD Student Environmental Science, M.Sc. in CS Obtained Dec. 2024, University of Victoria

Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Games, Computer Graphics

Yuduo (Oda) Jin

PhD Student, University of Victoria

Computer Graphics, Computer Animation, Machine Learning

Vahid Gholamzadeh

PhD Student CS + Business, University of Victoria

Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Operation Research, Optimization, Operation Management

Qian (Beth) Wang

PhD Student, University of Victoria

Machine Learning, Computer Graphics, Artificial Intelligence

Steven Bobyn

Master's Student, University of Victoria | NSERC USRA Recipient (SU2023)

Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Crowd Simulation

Zhixin (Shin) Fang

Master's Project Student, University of Victoria

Graphics, Audio and Game Engine

Rui Zhang

Master's Student, University of Victoria

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning

Undergraduate Researchers

Liam Shatzel

Computer Science | Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award Recipient (F2024) | Valerie Kuehne Undergraduate Research Award Recipient (SU2022)

Crowd Simulation

Affiliate Researchers

Dominic Ferreira

GAIDG Graduate Alumni, M.Sc. Obtained Aug. 2023, University of Victoria

Complex Synthetic Crowd Agents, Computer Vision

External Collaborators

Petros Faloutsos

Professor, York University | Affiliate Scientist, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

Computer Graphics, Computer Animation, Virtual Humans, Serious Games

Mubbasir Kapadia

Associate Professor, Rutgers University | Director, Intelligent Visual Interfaces Lab

Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Humans(Crowds), Computer-Aided Design, Digital Storytelling

Mathew Schwartz

Associate Professor, Hillier College of Architecture and Design, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Human Factors, Computational Design, Universal Design, Spatial Evaluation, Design Automation, Biomechanics, Computer Graphics

Glen Berseth

Assistant Professor, Université de Montréal | Associate Academic Member Mila - Quebec AI Institute

Reinforcement Learning, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Robotics

Muhammad Usman

Assistant Professor, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

Melissa Kremer

PhD Student, York University

Computer Graphics and Animation, Virtual Crowd Simulation, Visual Attention

Graduate Alums

Jonas Buro

GAIDG Graduate Alumni, M.Sc. Obtained Dec. 2024, University of Victoria | NSERC USRA recipient (S2021)

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

Gabrielle Alves

GAIDG Graduate Alumni, M.Sc. Obtained Aug. 2024, University of Victoria

Perception and Design

Dominic Ferreira

GAIDG Graduate Alumni, M.Sc. Obtained Aug. 2023, University of Victoria

Complex Synthetic Crowd Agents, Computer Vision

Kunal Parikh

GAIDG Graduate Alumni, M.Sc. Obtained Aug. 2023, University of Victoria

Undergraduate Alums

Geyang Liu

Computer Science

Computer graphics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

Saavin Virk

Computer Science + Health Information Science

Motion Capture

Natalie Slaba

Computer Science + Fine Arts

Smart Crowding Agents

Sarah Mackay

Computer Science + Psychology

Perception of Environments

Brendan Marney

Computer Science + Music

Multi Agent Bat Behavioral Simulation

Colin Johnson

Computer Science | Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award Recipient

Autonomous evaluation of signage visibility for accessibility auditing

Thomas Richmond

Computer Science + Geography

Scalable shortest path planning for human accessibility

Julia Putko

Computer Science + Psychology

Crowd simulation, Learning Biomechanical Models

Yiping Wang

(Now at University of Waterloo, MMath) Computer Science | Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award recipient | W.E. Cowie Innovation Award Recipient | Vector Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence Recipient

Visual Computing