Niall L. Williams

Niall L. Williams is a Faculty Fellow at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, part of the Immersive Computing Lab led by Prof. Qi Sun. His research focuses on applied human perception in computer graphics, with particular expertise in natural walking algorithms for virtual reality. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), where he contributed to computational methods for redirected walking. His undergraduate studies at Davidson College included redirected walking threshold research under Prof. Tabitha Peck.

Education:

• PhD in Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park (2024)
• B.S. in Computer Science, Davidson College (High Honors, 2019)

Research interests span virtual reality navigation, human perception modeling, and haptic/robotic interfaces. Recent work explores multisensory integration in VR environments and environment compatibility metrics for natural walking systems.

Notable awards include Best Paper Honorable Mentions at IEEE VR 2022 and IEEE ISMAR/VR 2021. His open-source library PettingZoo (NeurIPS 2021) is widely used in multi-agent reinforcement learning research.

Teaching roles include instructing NYU courses on programming and visualization, along with extensive TA experience at UMD and Davidson. He has also contributed to educational outreach through initiatives like Girls Talk Math.

Current affiliations include NVIDIA Research internships and collaborations with Meta Reality Labs. His work bridges computer graphics, robotics, and human-computer interaction to improve immersive experience safety and realism.