C. Karen Liu

Bio

C. Karen Liu is an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. Prior to joining Stanford, Liu was a faculty member at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She received her Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington. Liu's research interests are in computer graphics and robotics, including physics-based animation, character animation, optimal control, reinforcement learning, and computational biomechanics. She developed computational approaches to modeling realistic and natural human movements, learning complex control policies for humanoids and assistive robots, and advancing fundamental numerical simulation and optimal control algorithms. The algorithms and software developed in her lab have fostered interdisciplinary collaboration with researchers in robotics, computer graphics, mechanical engineering, biomechanics, neuroscience, and biology. Liu received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and was named Young Innovators Under 35 by Technology Review. In 2012, Liu received the ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award for her contribution in the field of computer graphics.

Academic Appointments

• Associate Professor, Computer Science

Honors & Awards

• SIGGRAPH Significant New Research Award, ACM (2012)
• Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2010)
• Young Innovators Under 35, MIT Technology Review (2007)
• CAREER Award, National Science Foundation (2007)

Professional Education

• BS, National Taiwan University, Computer Science (1999)
• MS, University of Washington, Computer Science (2001)
• PhD, University of Washington, Computer Science (2005)