Portrait of Zizhou Huang

Zizhou Huang

Senior Software Engineer, Layered Clothing · Roblox

I build physics simulation systems for computer graphics. My work centers on robust contact and deformation solvers, and on the optimization problems that sit on top of them — shape design, material estimation, and control through differentiable simulation.

I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, where I was a member of the Geometric Computing Lab, advised by Daniele Panozzo and Denis Zorin. Before that I received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Science and Technology of China.

New York University

University of Science and Technology of China

San Mateo, California zizhou at nyu.edu Curriculum Vitae

News

Apr 2025
Joined the layered clothing team at Roblox as a full-time engineer.
Apr 2025
Successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis.
Apr 2025
Three papers accepted to SIGGRAPH 2025.
Nov 2024
One paper accepted to SIGGRAPH Asia 2024.
Jul 2024
One paper accepted to SIGGRAPH 2024.

Jun 2024
One paper accepted to SGP 2024.
May 2024
Joined the Avatar team at Roblox as a research intern.
Jun 2022
Joined the simulation team at nTop as a summer intern.
Sep 2020
Started my Ph.D. in Computer Science at New York University.
Jun 2020
Received my B.S. in Applied Mathematics from USTC.

Research

Garments retargeted onto a range of character body shapes

Intersection-free Garment Retargeting

Zizhou Huang, Chrystiano Araújo, Andrew Kunz, Denis Zorin, Daniele Panozzo, Victor Zordan

SIGGRAPH Conference Papers, 2025

Project page Paper Supplement Video Code

Smooth contact potential compared against IPC

Geometric Contact Potential

Zizhou Huang, Max Paik, Zachary Ferguson, Daniele Panozzo, Denis Zorin

ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH), 2025

Project page Paper Supplement Video Code

MiSo domain-specific language teaser

MiSo: A DSL for Robust and Efficient MINIMIZE and SOLVE Problems

Federico Sichetti, Enrico Puppo, Zizhou Huang, Marco Attene, Denis Zorin, Daniele Panozzo

ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH), 2025

Paper

High-order element validity check

High-Order Continuous Geometrical Validity

Federico Sichetti, Zizhou Huang, Marco Attene, Denis Zorin, Enrico Puppo, Daniele Panozzo

ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH), 2025

Paper Video Code

eFlesh magnetic touch sensor

eFlesh: Highly Customizable Magnetic Touch Sensing using Cut-Cell Microstructures

Venkatesh Pattabiraman, Zizhou Huang, Daniele Panozzo, Denis Zorin, Lerrel Pinto, Raunaq Bhirangi

arXiv preprint, 2025

Project page Paper Code

Optimized shock-protecting microstructures

Optimized Shock-protecting Microstructures

Zizhou Huang, Daniele Panozzo, Denis Zorin

ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH Asia), 2024

Project page Paper Video Code

Differentiable simulation with contact

Differentiable Solver for Time-dependent Deformation Problems with Contact

Zizhou Huang, Davi Colli Tozoni, Arvi Gjoka, Zachary Ferguson, Teseo Schneider, Daniele Panozzo, Denis Zorin

ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH), 2024

Project page Paper Video Code

Cut-cell microstructures

Cut-Cell Microstructures for Two-scale Structural Optimization

Davi Colli Tozoni, Zizhou Huang, Daniele Panozzo, Denis Zorin

Computer Graphics Forum (SGP), 2024

Paper Video

Incompressible Navier-Stokes benchmark scenes

A Large-Scale Benchmark for the Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations

Zizhou Huang, Teseo Schneider, Minchen Li, Chenfanfu Jiang, Denis Zorin, Daniele Panozzo

arXiv preprint, 2021

Preprint

Open-source Software

PolyFEM

A polyvalent C++ and Python finite element library. I contribute the differentiable solver and the contact and homogenization components.

Documentation GitHub

Teaching

Teaching Assistant · New York University

2023Honors Analysis of Algorithms

2022Honors Analysis of Algorithms

2021Computer Graphics

Teaching Assistant · University of Science and Technology of China

2019Numerical Linear Algebra

2018Multivariate Calculus