Kenny Chen

Welcome! I'm a 2nd year Computer Science PhD student at New York University, advised by Prof. Qi Sun. I study how graphics and display systems can be optimized by understanding human visual perception.

This summer, I am at the University of Cambridge working with Prof. Rafał Mantiuk. During my PhD, I interned twice at Meta Reality Labs, both times hosted by Dr. Alex Chapiro. Before my PhD, I did an MS at NYU (2023) and a BA at UC Berkeley (2021). I'm happy to chat about research or anything else; email me at kennychen@nyu.edu!

Email | Google Scholar | CV

Timeline [See All]
2025 05 Our I3D poster won a best poster award.
05 I received the Deborah Rosenthal, MD Award for outsanding performance on the PhD quals.
04 A project on computer-generated holography was accepted to Optics Express.
04 My internship project, "What is HDR?", was accepted to SIGGRAPH 2025!
04 Our work on image representation using 2D gaussians was accepted to SIGGRAPH 2025.
Publications

(Representative papers are highlighted, *=equal contribution, †=equal advising)
What is HDR? Perceptual Impact of Luminance and Contrast in Immersive Displays
Kenneth Chen, Nathan Matsuda, Jon McElvain, Yang Zhao, Thomas Wan, Qi Sun†, Alexandre Chapiro†
ACM SIGGRAPH 2025
We studied how contrast/luminance compression affects user preferences in HDR.
project page PDF doi video supplement

Image-GS: Content-Adaptive Image Representation via 2D Gaussians
Yunxiang Zhang*, Bingxuan Li*, Alexandr Kuznetsov, Akshay Jindal, Stavros Diolatzis, Kenneth Chen, Anton Sochenov, Anton Kaplanyan, Qi Sun
ACM SIGGRAPH 2025
2D gaussians can serve as an effective technique for low bit rate image encoding.
project page PDF code

View Synthesis for 3D Computer-Generated Holograms Using Deep Neural Fields
Kenneth Chen, Anzhou Wen, Yunxiang Zhang, Praneeth Chakravarthula, Qi Sun
Optics Express 2025
Neural networks are trained to predict 3D holograms at novel scene views.
project page PDF doi video supplement

Process Only Where You Look: Hardware and Algorithm Co-optimization for Efficient Gaze-Tracked Image Rendering in Virtual Reality
Haiyu Wang, Wenxuan Liu, Kenneth Chen, Qi Sun, Sai Qian Zhang
ACM/IEEE ISCA 2025
project page PDF doi

Perceptually-Guided Acoustic ``Foveation''
Xi Peng, Kenneth Chen, Iran Roman, Juan Pablo Bello, Qi Sun†, Praneeth Chakravarthula†
IEEE VR 2025
We present a perceptual sound source clustering technique.
project page PDF doi

PEA-PODs: Perceptual Evaluation of Algorithms for Power Optimization in XR Displays
Kenneth Chen, Thomas Wan, Nathan Matsuda, Ajit Ninan, Alexandre Chapiro†, Qi Sun†
ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Best Paper Award (Honorable Mention)
We conduct user studies to evaluate display power optimization algorithms.
project page PDF doi code video supplement poster award

Exploiting Human Color Discrimination for Memory- and Energy-Efficient Image Encoding in Virtual Reality
Nisarg Ujjainkar, Ethan Shahan, Kenneth Chen, Budmonde Duinkharjav, Qi Sun, Yuhao Zhu
ACM ASPLOS 2024
A DRAM traffic compression scheme using peripheral color modulation.
project page PDF doi code video

Toward Optimized VR/AR Ergonomics: Modeling and Predicting User Neck Muscle Contraction
Yunxiang Zhang, Kenneth Chen, Qi Sun
ACM SIGGRAPH 2023
Leveraging EMG devices, we developed a model to predict VR neck muscular workload.
project page PDF doi code video

Color-Perception-Guided Display Power Reduction for Virtual Reality
Budmonde Duinkharjav*, Kenneth Chen*, Abhishek Tyagi, Jiayi He, Yuhao Zhu†, Qi Sun†
ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2022
We measured human sensitivity to peripheral color stimuli via a psychophysical studied, and applied this data to OLED display power optimization.
project page PDF doi code video


Posters/Demos

BlendFusion: Procedural 3D Texturing Assistant with View-Consistent Generative Models
Qinchan Li, Finley Torrens, Kenneth Chen, Qi Sun
ACM I3D 2025 Best Poster Award
Diffusion models can be used for texturing 3D models.
project page PDF doi video poster

Towards Learning and Generating Audience Motion from Video
Kenneth Chen, Norman I. Badler
ACM SCA 2023 | Poster
A dataset of audience videos.
project page PDF doi video poster

Imperceptible Color Modulation for Power Saving in VR/AR
Kenneth Chen, Budmonde Duinkharjav, Nisarg Ujjainkar, Ethan Shahan, Abhishek Tyagi, Jiayi He, Yuhao Zhu, Qi Sun
ACM SIGGRAPH 2023 | Emerging Technologies Demo
A demo of the display setup and model from our SIGGRAPH Asia '22 paper.
project page PDF doi video


Experience
University of Cambridge | Visiting Scholar [June 2025 - August 2025]
Working on image quality metrics, mentored by Prof. Rafał Mantiuk.
Meta | Research Scientist Intern [June 2024- January 2025]
Studied/modeled contrast and luminance preferences in HDR displays, mentored by Dr. Alexandre Chapiro.
Meta | Research Scientist Intern [June 2023 - January 2024]
Studied the visibility of display power optimization algorithms, mentored by Dr. Alexandre Chapiro.
Cesium | Research Scientist Intern [June 2022 - August 2022]
Created an audience video dataset, supervised by Prof. Norman I. Badler.

Teaching

CS-GY 9223: Virtual and Augmented Reality, New York University
Course Assistant | Fall 2024 | Prof. Qi Sun
CS-GY 6313: Data Visualization, New York University
Course Assistant | Spring 2023, 2025 | Prof. Qi Sun
CS-GY 6533 A: Interactive Computer Graphics, New York University
Course Assistant | Fall 2021 | Prof. Claudio Silva
CS 184: Computer Graphics & Imaging, UC Berkeley
Undergraduate Student Instructor | Spring 2021 | Prof. Ren Ng & Prof. Angjoo Kanazawa | [slides]
CS 194-26: Intro to Computer Vision and Computational Photography, UC Berkeley
Group Tutor & Reader | Fall 2020 | Prof. Alexei Efros

Miscellanea

Image 1
some of my photos
Image 1
photos of birds
Image 1
a visualization of sorting algorithms