Hi, I'm Jesse!
Postdoctoral Researcher at Facebook AI Research
What I'm about
How can we leverage mixed reality and virtual agents to build efficient and enjoyable remote collaboration tools? What's the role of nonverbal communication in these new mediums? Where can we reduce our carbon footprint by replacing travel and face-to-face meetings with virtual proxies? These questions have implications for the future of work, communication, and sustainability.
My research seeks to provide some answers. It lies at the intersection of character animation, deep learning, human-computer interaction, nonverbal-communication, graphics, virtual reality, and psychology. I'm currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Davis, under the excellent tutelage of Dr. Michael Neff. Previously, I've had the good fortune to work alongside talented researchers at Oculus Research (now Facebook Reality Labs), Snap Inc. (parent company of Snapchat), and Army Research Lab (ARL) West.
I'm currently seeking new opportunities for research, software engineering, and data science work in academia or industry.
My curriculum vitae.
Education
Ph.D. Computer Science
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA
M.S. Computer Science
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA
B.S. (Hons) Environmental Engineering
Tufts University
Somerville, MA
Selected Projects
Patent
Avatar Style Transformation Using Neural Networks
US Patent Number: 10896534
Work Experience
Facebook AI Research (FAIR)
Postdoctoral Researcher
Pittsbugh, PA
Snap, Inc.
Research Intern
Venice, California
Oculus Research (Facebook Reality Labs)
Research Intern
Sausalito, California
Army Research Lab - West
Visiting Researcher
Playa Vista, CA
Abt Associates
Associate Programmer Analyst
Cambridge, MA
Teaching
CDM 131 Character Animation
Associate Instructor
Autodesk Maya-based class focused on art and practice of character animation. Theoretical material focused on introductory movement theory, principles of animating, and timing. Practical work focused on building characters, developing a sense of wieght, and animating motion such as walking and gesturing.
Class notes here.
TCS 007D Introduction to Web Design
Associate Instructor
Summer intensive workshop focused on static website construction via HTML and CSS.
Class notes here.
TCS 170D Web Design
Associate Instructor
Continuation of TCS 170D. Primarily focused on responsive websites, cascades, the box model, LESS and Bootstrap.
Class notes here.
TCS 007A Introduction Digital Imaging
Associate Instructor
Adobe Photoshop-centered summer intensive workshop. Best practices and efficient workflows for touching up existing photographs, introduction to creating digital collages.
Class notes here.
TCS 170A Digital Imaging
Associate Instructor
Continuation of TCS 1007A. Primarily focused on tools and techniques for creating digital collages.
Class notes here.
ECS 089H Beginning Web Programing
Co-Developer & Teaching Assistant
An introduction to programming through both browser-based and server-side web application development. Overview of web development tools and technologies, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, BootStrap, Node.js and MySQL.
Contact
San Francisco Bay Area / Davis Phone Number
(415) 413 8303 Email
hjsmith at ucdavis dot edu