CV

Doctor of Philosophy

University of California San Diego

Cognitive Science

• Research in Human-computer-interaction & Design, advised by Prof. Steven Dow.

Master of Science

University of California San Diego

Computer Science and Engineering

• Research in Human-computer-interaction & Graphics, advised by Prof. Steven Dow and Prof. Tzu-Mao Li.

Bachelor of Science

University of California San Diego

Data Science & Probability and Statistics

• Research in Intuitive Physics, advised by Prof. Judith Fan.

Graduate Student Researcher

UCSD, ProtoLab

Investigating generative models for contextual multimodal documents to aid designers and support collaborative scenarios.

Graduate Student Researcher

UCSD, Tzu-Mao Li's Lab

Combining neural methods and traditional graphics pipelines to enable flexible and fast-forward physical interaction prediction; studying inverse physical prediction using diffusion-based models.

Undergraduate Researcher

UCSD, HDSI

Developed GraphHSCN, a novel graph neural network architecture for long-range interaction modeling.

Undergraduate Researcher

UCSD, CogTools Lab

Contributed to Physion and Physion++, focusing on data analysis and designing 3D stimuli for non-rigid physical interactions.

XXX: abcdefg [Rejected at CHI26]

Submission at UIST 2026

Sirui Tao, …, and Steven P. Dow.

What Happened and Why? Trace-Guided Micro-Episodes with Elicited User Explanations for Product Iteration

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2026 (Position paper for "Herding CATs: Making Sense of Creative Activity Traces" workshop)

Sirui Tao, William P. McCarthy, Steven P. Dow.

DesignWeaver: Dimensional Scaffolding for Text-to-Image Product Design

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2025

Sirui Tao, Ivan Liang, Cindy Peng, Zhiqing Wang, Srishti Palani, and Steven P. Dow.

HotSpot: Screened Poisson Equation for Signed Distance Function Optimization

Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2025 (Highlight)

Zimo Wang, Cheng Wang, Taiki Yoshino, Sirui Tao, Ziyang Fu, and Tzu-Mao Li.

Physion++: Evaluating Physical Scene Understanding with Objects Consisting of Different Physical Attributes in Humans and Machines

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 2023 (Poster with abstract)

Hsiao-Yu Tung, Mingyu Ding, Zhenfang Chen, Sirui Tao, Vedang Lad, Daniel Bear, Chuang Gan, Josh Tenenbaum, Daniel Yamins, Judith Fan, and Kevin Smith.

Physion: Evaluating Physical Prediction from Vision in Humans and Machines

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 2021 (NeurIPS Datasets & Benchmarks Track)

Daniel Bear, Elias Wang, Damian Mrowca, Felix Binder, Hsiao-Yu Tung, Pramod RT, Cameron Holdaway, Sirui Tao, Kevin Smith, Fan-Yun Sun, Fei-Fei Li, Nancy Kanwisher, Josh Tenenbaum, Dan Yamins, and Judith Fan.

MSR Fellowship [Rejected Once, Accepted Zero Times ;)]

Microsoft Research

YC AI Student Starter Pack

Y Combinator

~$25,000 in free credits for AI tools and cloud services.

SHORE Fellowship

UCSD, Cognitive Science Department

~$70,000 in value; 3 recipients in the Cognitive Science Department annually.

OpenAI Researcher Access Program

OpenAI

~$1,000 in credits.

IGE Shah Fellowship

UCSD, Institute for the Global Entrepreneur

Awarded the Shah Family Entrepreneur Fellowship ($5,000) as one of two Shah Fellows university-wide for outstanding research contributions and entrepreneurial potential. The fellowship, launched by the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur (IGE)—a collaboration between the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Rady School of Management—aims to teach engineers to become entrepreneurs and leaders.

The Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School Fellowship

Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Institute

$3,000; ~60 global recipients annually.

HDSI Research Scholarship [Rejected Once, Accepted Twice]

UCSD, Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute

$2,500 x 2; ~30 recipients at HDSI annually.

TRELS Research Scholarship [Rejected Twice, Accepted Twice]

AEP, UCSD

$1,000 x 2; ~75 recipients at UCSD quarterly.

Provost Honor

Warren College, UCSD

$0, but it sounds cool; ~20% of students at Warren College annually.

Teaching Assistant - DSGN 1: Design of Everyday Things

UCSD

TA for Prof. Michael Meyer

Teaching Assistant - COGS 187A: Usability & Information Architecture

UCSD

TA for Prof. Mary ET Boyle

Teaching Assistant - COGS 186: Genetic Algorithms

UCSD

TA for Prof. Anjum Gupta

Teaching Assistant - DSGN 1: Design of Everyday Things

UCSD

TA for Prof. Michael Meyer

Teaching Assistant - DSGN 1: Design of Everyday Things

UCSD

TA for Prof. Michael Meyer

Teaching Assistant - CSE 175: Entrepreneurship for Engineers

UCSD

TA for Prof. Rakesh Kumar

Teaching Assistant - DSGN 1: Design of Everyday Things

UCSD

TA for Prof. Scott Klemmer

Teaching Assistant - COGS 9: Introduction to Data Science

UCSD

TA for Prof. Meenakshi Khosla

C&C Full Paper Reviewer

2 papers.

DIS Full Paper Reviewer

2 papers; Special Recognition for 1.

CHI Full Paper Reviewer

8 papers; Special Recognition for 3 + Highly Useful for 1.

UCSD Design Lab Weekly Research Meeting Annual Organizer

CI Extended Abstract Reviewer + Student Volunteer

1 paper.

CHI Late Breaking Work Reviewer

2 papers.

DIS Work-in-Progress Reviewer

1 paper.

UCSD Design Lab Weekly Research Meeting Fall Quarter Co-host

Garage Startup Intern

MAVERiC Studio

Explored virtual world creation, metaverse audience engagement, and AI tools. Built ‘Not A Good Driver’. Try it here.

Data Engineer

SchedGo

Built data infrastructure and conducted analytics; developed marketing data analytics to identify key user groups; designed a survey model for front-end user feedback.

Deep Learning Engineer Intern

San Diego Supercomputer Center

Implemented scalable multi-GPU hyperparameter tuning using Ray Tune on HPC infrastructure. Investigated data-centric MLOps solutions to improve time and resource efficiency in experimentation.

Data Scientist Intern

Tesla

Developed lossless image compression solutions and advanced statistical process control tools.

Data Scientist Intern

Buhler Group

Initiated MLOps image-labeling features for defect detection and prototyped cross-functional innovation tools.

Analyst Intern

J.D. Power

Optimized workflow for quality analytics by automating data processing and report pipelines.

Data Analyst Intern

Bosch

Developed Tableau dashboards for manufacturing analytics; reduced bottleneck diagnosing time by 80%.

Data Science Student Representative

Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, UC San Diego

Represented HDSI students to improve the data science program and curriculum.

• Peer-advised HDSI undergraduate students.
• Evaluated and improved the data science curriculum.
• Promoted the program to external audiences.

Mentor at UCSD

Mentor Collective

Mentored first-year and transfer students at UCSD to help them adapt to university life.

• Provided guidance and support for new UCSD students.
• Facilitated connections to campus resources and communities.