Nima Kalantari

Nima Kalantari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at Texas A&M University. He previously held a postdoctoral position at UC San Diego under Ravi Ramamoorthi. His academic journey includes a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara (ECE), an M.S. and B.S. from Amirkabir University of Technology (Electrical Engineering). His research focuses on computer graphics, computational photography, rendering, and deep learning, with emphasis on machine learning techniques for image synthesis and material generation.

Education:

• Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2015
• M.S., Electrical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, 2009
• B.S., Electrical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, 2007

Research Interests: Kalantari's work bridges computer graphics and deep learning, particularly in computational photography, rendering, and view synthesis. Recent projects include 3D relightable face generation, sparse view synthesis with Gaussians, and physics-guided neural networks for fluid dynamics.

Awards:

• 2024 Frontiers of Science Award (SIGGRAPH 2019)
• TEES Young Faculty Fellow Award (2024)
• Best Master Thesis Award, IEEE Iran Section (2010)

Advising & Labs: Active mentor for 8 current Ph.D./M.S. students and advisor to alumni including Xilong Zhou (Postdoc at MPI for Informatics). His team focuses on projects like PanoDreamer (3D panorama synthesis) and PhotoMat (material generation from flash photos).