I am a researcher, software engineer and artist.

I studied computer science, because we can make computers do anything. I do research, because it turned out quite difficult. I practice art, because one needs perspective to make meaningful impact on the world.

Today, I am a research scientist at NVIDIA, where I lead my group to make our connection to the real world stronger. As artists and as engineers, we need to remain rooted in what is around us -- for inspiration and for development and testing of physical systems, but digital tools remain challenging. How can we faciliate tools and workflows that empower and delight, make the impossible possible? I am also a non-professional artist, trying to understand how technology can facilitate meaningful experiences. I earned my PhD at the University of Toronto, where I was supervised by the best duo of advisers, Karan Singh and Sanja Fidler, and received Canada's Alain Fournier Award for outstanding doctoral dissertation in Computer Graphics. I have also been a Research Engineer at Adobe Research, got my Master's from MIT working on digital fabrication, and was a software engineer on maps and on speech recognition at Google. My Bachelor's is from Boston University, where I have Margrit Betke to thank for introducing me to research.

I love spending time with my family and painting. I also enjoy weight lifting, running, travel, long hikes, growing and foraging for edible things, cooking, downhill skiing, cats and random crafts.

To avoid any confusion, Maria is my formal name.