Ling-Qi Yan

Ling-Qi Yan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he co-directs the MIRAGE Lab and is affiliated with the Four Eyes Lab. His research focuses on computer graphics, particularly real-time rendering, physically-based appearance modeling, and advanced light transport algorithms. Prior to UCSB, he earned his PhD from UC Berkeley, advised by Ravi Ramamoorthi, and completed internships at Disney, Autodesk, Weta Digital, and NVIDIA Research. He also holds a B.E. in Computer Science from Tsinghua University.

Yan's education includes a PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley (2018) and a B.E. from Tsinghua University (2013). His research interests span rendering photo-realistic visuals, real-time ray tracing, and appearance modeling for materials like fabrics and fur. Notable achievements include the 2023 EGSR Best Paper Award for cloth shading work and the 2019 ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award.

His awards include the Regents' Junior Faculty Fellowship (UCSB), Best Visual Effects Award (EGSR 2023), and NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship supervision recognition. He teaches courses such as Introduction to Computer Graphics and Real-Time High-Quality Rendering, and has developed online courses in Chinese like GAMES101 and GAMES202.

Yan's lab collaborations and industry ties include roles as a research consultant at Intel and visiting professor at NVIDIA. His research emphasizes bridging theory and practice, with over 50 publications in top venues like SIGGRAPH and ACM Transactions on Graphics.