{"683296":{"#nid":"683296","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Machine Learning Seminar Series Fall 2025 | Pixels to Physics: Understanding and Manipulating Physics from Images","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbstract: \u003C\/strong\u003EA hallmark of human vision is the ability to reason about the physics of the world: we can infer the shape of an object, how light reflects off it, and how the object deforms under force. Yet today\u2019s AI systems still lack this kind of physical intuition. Enabling machines to perceive and manipulate physics would mark a major step toward grounding AI in the real world.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn this talk, I will present my lab\u2019s research at the intersection of computer vision, graphics, and machine learning that takes an \u003Cem\u003Einverse graphics\u003C\/em\u003E perspective: rather than forward-simulating the physics of light, materials, and deformation as in decades of computer graphics, we aim to invert this process to infer and control these properties directly from images. The first part of the talk will focus on explicitly estimating physics, with examples in recovering lighting, reflectance, and object deformation. The second part will show how controlled generative models allow us to manipulate physics, with applications in relighting and simulating facial aging. Together, these efforts highlight a path toward AI systems with a deeper and more actionable understanding of the physical world.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBio: \u003C\/strong\u003ERoni Sengupta is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and directs the Spatial \u0026amp; Physical Intelligence (SPIN) Lab. Her research lies at the intersection of Computer Vision and Computer Graphics, with a focus on solving Inverse Graphics problems to enable applications in visual content creation and editing, telepresence, AR\/VR, robotic perception, and medical imaging. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Washington, Seattle (2019\u20132022), following her PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a recipient of the New \u0026amp; Early Career Trailblazer Award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIH). Her work on Background Matting received a Best Student Paper Honorable Mention at CVPR 2021 (Top 7 out of 1600 accepted papers) and has been adopted by several companies, including Microsoft and Inter-State Studio.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJoin Zoom Meeting\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/94322039610?pwd=ZK7BSj8zuM0U3lylheI9YJalJE3Z3u.1\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 title=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/94322039610?pwd=ZK7BSj8zuM0U3lylheI9YJalJE3Z3u.1\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/94322039610?pwd=ZK7BSj8zuM0U3lylheI9YJalJE3Z3u.1\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeeting ID: 943 2203 9610\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003EPasscode: 547103\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Seminar Held on Wednesday 12pm - 1pm\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":" Featuring Roni Sengupta - Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill"}],"uid":"27863","created_gmt":"2025-07-25 18:24:13","changed_gmt":"2025-10-15 18:45:25","author":"Christa Ernst","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2025-11-05T12:00:00-05:00","event_time_end":"2025-11-05T13:00:00-05:00","event_time_end_last":"2025-11-05T13:00:00-05:00","gmt_time_start":"2025-11-05 17:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2025-11-05 18:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2025-11-05 18:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"CODA Building 9th floor Atrium \u0026 Zoom","extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.cs.unc.edu\/~ronisen\/","title":"Speaker Webpage"}],"groups":[{"id":"322011","name":"College of Computing Events"},{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"545781","name":"Institute for Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"142761","name":"IRIM"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"9167","name":"machine learning"},{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"188087","name":"go-irim"},{"id":"187023","name":"go-data"},{"id":"190968","name":"arts and technology"},{"id":"145251","name":"virtual reality"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1795","name":"Seminar\/Lecture\/Colloquium"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78761","name":"Faculty\/Staff"},{"id":"177814","name":"Postdoc"},{"id":"78771","name":"Public"},{"id":"174045","name":"Graduate students"},{"id":"78751","name":"Undergraduate students"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}