Yukun Zhou（周宇坤/Ethan）

Yukun Zhou（周宇坤/Ethan）

Research, projects, and art.

🚧 Work in Progress: This website is still under development and being updated.

About Me

I am Yukun Zhou（周宇坤/Ethan）. My background combines physics-based simulation research, graphics engineering, game development, HCI, and applied machine learning.

I am especially interested in developing physics-based simulation algorithms and systems that are physically meaningful, computationally efficient, and useful for interactive applications, and in applying them to robotics. My research focuses on physics-based simulation and optimization for deformable objects, as well as related robotics applications.

Previously, I worked on rod insertion, soft-body projective dynamics, cutting simulation, and VBD-based optimization methods. I am currently a research assistant at UCLA, advised by Dr. Chenfanfu Jiang. My current work focuses on robotics and simulation.

Education

Research Output

  • Manuscript under review: Anonymous author, Yukun Zhou, and other authors. About the optimization of Vertex Block Descent. Manuscript submitted, 2026.
  • Manuscript under review: First-author research on games, ICT4D, player experience, and well-being. Manuscript under review, 2026.

Research

Research Assistant
University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA
Advised by Dr. Chenfanfu Jiang, June 2026 - Present.

  • Working on a simulation and robotics project.

Joint RA-PhD Track - Physics-Based Simulation
Chinese Academy of Sciences (Hong Kong Institute of Science and Innovation) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Advised by Dr. Zhongkai Zhang and Dr. Hongbin Liu, July 2025 - June 2026.

  • Manuscript in preparation: Yukun Zhou and other authors. About Rod Insertion. Manuscript in preparation, 2026.
  • Completed the main experiments and produced a paper draft on accurate rod-insertion simulation algorithms based on Projective Dynamics and Cosserat rods using Lagrangian constraint-based methods, with contact and friction.
  • Contributed to performance improvements for the Vertex Block Descent project and paper.
  • Developed and reproduced simulation systems including SDF soft-body contact, DiSect differentiable cutting, FEM, Projective Dynamics cutting with low-rank update methods, and lung puncturing simulation with Warp.
  • Completed human brain 3D reconstruction from MRI images using neural networks.
PD Insertion with Needle Volume Constraints
PD Rabbit Cutting with Low-Rank Updates

VBD images are not uploaded because the manuscript is currently under review.

View CAS and CUHK RA-PhD project

Summer Research Intern - Fluid Simulation about Neural and Particle Flow Map
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
Advised by Dr. Bo Zhu, June 2024 - September 2024.

  • Replicated the Neural Flow Map algorithm in Taichi and developed a real-time 3D stable fluid simulation using OpenGL compute shaders.
  • Accelerated Particle Flow Map simulation with long-range mapping and short-range projection, achieving an 80% speed improvement.
Particle Flow Map Simulation I
Particle Flow Map Simulation II

Part-time Research Assistant - HCI Research on Games and Players
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Advised by Dr. Zhicong Lu, June 2022 - September 2023.

  • Developed design implications and application scenarios for improving player well-being through game-related systems.

Projects

Physics-Based Simulation Systems
Physics-Based Simulation

C++ implementations of deformation, animation, and inverse-kinematics systems, from mass-spring models to regularized solvers.

Technologies: C++, Simulation, Animation

Mass-Spring Cube Simulation
Inverse Kinematics
Keyframe Animation

More

Game Development
Games

Unity 3D projects including Lucidmare, PL-23, and Donuts!, spanning gameplay programming, graphics programming, shader development, technical design, and team leadership.

Technologies: Unity, C#, Graphics Programming, Shaders, Game Design

Lucidmare Gameplay
Lucidmare Shader
Donuts!

More

Subsurface Scattering Shader

3D Human Rendering
Computer Graphics

A Unity rendering project combining URP, hair anisotropy, separable subsurface scattering, and GLSL skin shading.

Technologies: Unity URP, GLSL, Rendering

Hand-Scratching Gesture Recognition
Human-Computer Interaction

An Android application that uses CNN models to recognize hand-scratching sounds on AR glasses in real time.

Technologies: Android, CNN, Audio

AR Glasses Gesture Recognition
Android Application
Audio Processing Pipeline

More

BERT Sentiment Analysis

NLP for Finance
Applied Machine Learning

A PyTorch BERT sentiment-analysis pipeline for understanding large-scale financial comments.

Technologies: PyTorch, BERT, NLP

Work Experience

  • Grader for CSCI 520: Computer Animation and Simulation
    University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
    Course taught by Dr. Jernej Barbic, January 2025 - May 2025.
  • Data Science Intern (Full-time, Four Days a Week)
    Siemens Mobility, Hong Kong, June 2021 - March 2022.
    • Designed and developed map matching, route matching, traffic flow prediction algorithms, and machine-learning time-series models including bi-LSTM, encoder-decoder LSTM, and ARIMA.
    • Manipulated databases and processed data in Python to support database development and maintenance.

Awards

  • Entrance Full Tuition Scholarship, City University of Hong Kong, 2019 - 2023.
  • Dean’s List Awards for Outstanding Academic Performance, City University of Hong Kong, 2019 - 2023.