Karthik Ramani

Karthik Ramani is the Donald W. Feddersen Professor of School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, with courtesy appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering and College of Education. He earned his B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1985, an MS from Ohio State University, in 1987, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1991, all in Mechanical Engineering. He has received many awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other organizations. He has served in the editorial board of Elsevier Journal of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design (JMD). In 2008 he was a visiting Professor at Stanford University (computer sciences), research fellow at PARC (formerly Xerox PARC). In 2016 summer he was visiting professor Oxford University Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He also serves on the Engineering Advisory sub-committee for SBIR/STTR for the NSF. In 2006 and 2007, he won the Most Cited Journal Paper award from CAD and the Research Excellence award in the College of Engineering at Purdue University. In 2009, he won the Outstanding Commercialization award from Purdue University. He was the co-founder of the world’s first commercial shape-based parts search engine (VizSeek) and more recently co-founded ZeroUI whose product (Ziro) won the Best of Consumer Electronics Show Finalist (CES 2016). His research interests are in the internet-of-things, augmented reality, modular and flexible robotic platforms, and human-machine interactions. His current projects include computer vision for object detection and grasp planning, modular robotic platform design, shape recognition using geometric deep learning, and physical reality simulation platform. His current research emphasis is to develop a Physical-Simulation Platform that will allow one to realistically simulate interactions between workers, robots, and machines in future workplaces such as factories and warehouses.

[CV]

[Wikipedia]

Alex Quinn

Alex Quinn is an Assistant Professor, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Quinn's research spans several areas of human-computer interaction (HCI), including crowdsourcing, human computation, decision-making, digital libraries, and information visualization.

Min Liu

Min Liu is an assistant professor working in the department of Mechanical Engineering at Tsinghua University. Currently, she is also a visiting assistant professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue, working with Prof. Ramani. She received her Ph.D. in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University in 2008. She earned her MS in manufacturing and automation from Tsinghua University in 2001 and a BS in Mechatronics from Central South University of China in 1998. Her current research interests are in geometric processing of 3D shapes for manufacturing applications, pattern recognition and feature analysis in 2D/3D images.

Tom Redick

Chao Peng

Kylie Peppler

Niklas Elmqvist

Yunbo Zhang

Asim Unmesh

Asim Unmesh is a PhD student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He completed his Bachelor's and Master's in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.  He works in the area of Computer Vision and Machine Learning. Currently he is working in the area of Activity Recognition and other related tasks.

Ana Villanueva

Ana Villanueva is a first year DPhD student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue. She obtained her bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas in Mechanical Engineering (2016). Her research interests involve the biomechanics behind human-computer interactions, data visualization and data analysis. Other research interests include the biomechanics of the human spine, the mechanical behavior of self-healing polymers and the design of walking aids for elderly patients. In her free time, Ana enjoys traveling with her friends, learning new languages, watching Dr. House and visiting her home country, Peru. She is a member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and a member of Pi Tau Sigma, the International Mechanical Engineering Honor Society.

Ananya Ipsita

Ananya Ipsita is a Master's student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University since Fall 2018. She received her Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India. Prior to joining Purdue, she worked as a software engineer in SAP Labs, India where she designed and developed analytical business solutions. Her research interest includes computer vision, robotic systems, Augmented Reality (AR) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

Yuzhao Chen

Dizhi Ma

Runlin Duan

Runlin Duan is a Ph.D. student of mechanical engineering at the Purdue University Convergence Design Lab, supervised by Prof. Karthik Ramani. His research interests include human computer interactions, design, virtual and augmented reality. He leads projects on develops human-AI collaboration systems for early stage concept generation, large-scale design space exploration and parametric modeling for CAD.

Fengming He

Fengming He is a Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. She received her B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2017 from Wuhan University, China. Her research interest includes computer vision, machine learning and its application to Augmented Reality (AR) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

Hyung-gun Chi

Hyung-gun Chi is a PHD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Before he joining the C-Design Lab, He received his B.S degree from the school of Mechanical Engineering at Yonsei University, South Korea in 2017. His research interests are computer vision, and machine learning.

Jingyu Shi

I am an incoming Research Scientist at Meta Reality Labs with the XR Codec Interaction and Avatar (XRCIA) Action Decoder team, starting from August 2025. Currently, I am a Ph.D. candidate (5-th year) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from <a href="http://www.purdue.edu/" target="_blank" rel="external nofollow noopener">Purdue University</a>, under the supervision of <a href="https://engineering.purdue.edu/~ramani/wordpress/" target="_blank" rel="external nofollow noopener">Prof. Karthik Ramani</a>. I obtained my M.S. degree in ECE in <a href="http://www.gatech.edu/" target="_blank" rel="external nofollow noopener">Georgia Institute of Technology</a>, working with <a href="https://ece.gatech.edu/directory/patricio-antonio-vela" target="_blank" rel="external nofollow noopener">Prof. Patricio Vela</a>. Prior to that, I studied Instrument Science and Technology in <a href="https://ev.buaa.edu.cn/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="external nofollow noopener">Beihang University</a> and became a B.Eng. My research interests lie in the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). Specifically, I study applied machine learning/deep learning algorithms and their applications across various platforms including Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), Robots, etc. I enjoy building interactive systems that utilize the state-of-the-art AI algorithms, as much as I enjoy designing user-friendly interactions to deploy the AI in real world applications. Currently, I am studying the deployment and interaction design of generative AI in AR applications.

Luis Paredes

Luis is a PhD student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He completed his undergraduate studies in Electric and Control Engineering at Escuela Politecnica Nacional from Ecuador. He also made an internship at Computer Science, Purdue University (2013). He joined the C Design Lab in Summer 2015 during his Master's program at Purdue University. His research focuses on facilitating access to knowledge, design & fabrication methods, and interactions with wearables. His research interests are product development, interaction methods, tangible and wearable user interfaces, prototyping, digital fabrication, customizable products, and mixing art with engineering.

Rahul Jain

Rahul Jain has been a Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University since Spring 2022. He is conducting research under Professor Karthik Ramani’s Convergence Design Lab. He received his Master’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University and Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Patna. His current research focuses on area of Computer Vision, Machine Learning and human-computer interactions utilizing AR/VR.

Subramanian Chidambaram

Subramanian Chidambaram is a Ph.D. student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Before joining the C Design lab, he obtained his Master’s from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics with a Minor in computational science and engineering from Purdue and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical engineering from Vellore Institute of Technology, India. His current research interest involves exploring Human-Computer Interactions and Code-less Digital interface development for Authoring Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) content, Collaboration with AR/VR, and instructional design for skill transfer using immersive reality and 3D User Interface. In addition, he has co-authored papers on tangible interfaces. In the past, he has also researched developing geometric modeling tools that guide novices to design, analyze and fabricate functional load-bearing structures.   <br> <a href="https://schidamb.github.io/">Personal Website</a>

Seunggeun Chi

Shao-Kang Hsia

Terrell Glenn

Terrell Glenn is a Ph.D student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University as a National GEM Consortium Fellow. Prior to joining the C Design Lab, Terrell received a B.S. in Physics from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia (2016). While at Morehouse, he has conducted research in swarm robotics as part of a Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) in accordance with NASA, and worked as a Platform Analysis Intern at Intel Corporation. His current research interests include robotics and robotic systems, product design, and implementing the aforementioned topics into childhood education. More information about Terrell can be found on his website at TerrellGlenn.com.

Tianyi Wang

Tianyi Wang is a Ph.D. student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Before joining the C Design Lab, Tianyi received his bachelor's degree from the Department of Precision Instrument in Tsinghua University, Beijing in 2016. Tianyi's current research interests focus on utilizing the technology of robotics, augmented reality as well as deep learning in the area of Human-Computer Interaction.

Xiyun Hu

PhD student in Mechanical Engineering, Robotics area. Focusing on human-computer iteration in AR/VR/MR/XR and mechatronics.

Xun Qian

Xun Qian is a Ph.D. student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University since Fall 2018. Before joining the C Design Lab, he received his Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering at Cornell University, and Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at University of Science and Technology Beijing. His current research interests lie in development of novel human-computer interactions leveraging AR/VR/MR, Deep Learning, and Cloud Computing. For more details, please visit his personal website at <a href="http://xun-qian.com">xun-qian.com</a>

Chenfei Zhu

I’m Chenfei Zhu (朱辰飞), a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University’s <a href="https://engineering.purdue.edu/cdesign/wp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Convergence Design Lab</a>, advised by <a href="https://engineering.purdue.edu/~ramani/wordpress" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prof. Karthik Ramani</a>. My research focuses on agentic AI for AR/MR authoring, with an emphasis on human behavior and human–AI interaction. Before coming to Purdue, I earned my B.Eng. degree in Automotive Engineering at Wuhan University of Technology and my M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University, where I worked with <a href="https://roar.me.columbia.edu/people/sunil-k-agrawal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prof. Sunil K. Agrawal</a>.

Ziyi Liu

Ziyi Liu has been a Ph.D. student in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University since Fall 2021. He is conducting research under Professor Karthik Ramani's Convergence Design Lab. He received his Master's and Bachelor's degrees in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. His current research focuses on innovative human-computer interactions utilizing AR/VR, and AI in authoring/tutoring systems.

Andrew Benton

Anirudh Sriram

Anirudh is a Master's student in Mechanical Engineering at the C Design Lab since Fall 2013. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from VIT University in India in June 2013. His research work is based on analyzing the pedagogy used to teach Mechanical Engineering design to students in Undergraduate level Engineering courses. He is working on a computer based learning tool that enables students to easily perform Finite Element Analysis (FEA). His other research interests include Product Design and Design Optimization.

Pashin Raja

Sai Swarup Reddy

Akhil Chinnakotla

Anthony Eshleman

Anirudh Vegesana

Claire Settlemyre

Xin Du

Morgan Fuller

Shayne Marques

Fagun Patel

Kiran Payne

Quentin LaFollette

Matthew Rumple

Jiayi Zou