Adrien Treuille

treuille [at] cs.cmu.edu
GHC 7006

Short Bio

I am an Assistant Professor of computer science and robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, working in the computer graphics group. I received my PhD under Zoran Popovic in the computer graphics group at the University of Washington, and was a postdoc in the Baker Group under Zoran Popovic and David Baker. I was one of the creators of Foldit, the computer game where users contribute to science by folding proteins. I also pursue research in the simulation and animation of very high-dimensional nonlinear phenomena like animal morphology, human motion, and large fluid systems. One thread of my research addresses the complexity of such systems by developing model reduction tools that generate compact representations. A complementary thread seeks to control such systems, which means learning to set inputs to produce desired effects. While I seek theoretical advances, I am also deeply interested in the implications for science and engineering of these techniques, from fluid dynamics to laying down a joint cognitive and biomechanical basis for animal motion.

Projects

Principles for Predicting RNA Secondary Structure Design Difficulty
with: Jeff Anderson-Lee, Eli Fisker, Vineet Kosaraju, Michelle Wu, Justin Kong, Jeehyung Lee, Minjae Lee, Mathew Zada, Rhiju Das, and EteRNA Participants
Journal of Molecular Biology Volume 428, Issue 5, Part A, 27 February 2016, Pages 748-757
[paper] [play the game]

Large-Scale Finite State Game Engines
with: Matthew Stanton, Sascha Geddert, Adrian Blumer, Paul Hormis, Andy Nealen, Seth Cooper
Eurographics/ ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Computer Animation (2016)
[paper] [video] [short playthrough video]

Self-Refining Games using Player Analytics
with: Matthew Stanton, Ben Humberston, Brandon Kase, James F. O'Brien, Kayvon Fatahalian
ACM Transactions on Graphics 33(3) (SIGGRAPH 2014)
[project] [paper] [video] [bibtex]

RNA design rules from a massive open laboratory
with: Jeehyung Lee, Wipapat Kladwang, Minjae Lee, Daniel Cantu, Martin Azizyan, Hanjoo Kim, Alex Limpaecher, Sungroh Yoon, Rhiju Das, and EteRNA Participants
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan 2014 (PNAS)
[paper] [play the game] [full paper and supplimental information]

Scientific rigor through videogames
with: Rhiju Das
Trends in Biochemical Sciences, Nov 2014
[paper] [play the game]

Real-Time Drawing Assistance Through Crowdsourcing
with: Alex Limpaecher, Nicolas Feltman, Michael Cohen
ACM Transactions on Graphics 32(3) (SIGGRAPH 2013)
[project] [paper] [video]

Near-exhaustive Precomputation of Secondary Cloth Effects
with: Doyub Kim, Woojong Koh, Rahul Narain, Kayvon Fatahalian, James F. O'Brien
ACM Transactions on Graphics 32(3) (SIGGRAPH 2013)
[project] [paper] [video] [bibtex]

Non-Polynomial Galerkin Projection on Deforming Meshes
with: Matthew Stanton, Yu Sheng, Martin Wicke, Federico Perazzi, Amos Yuen, Srinivasa Narasimhan
ACM Transactions on Graphics 32(3) (SIGGRAPH 2013)
[project] [paper] [video]

ROSETTA3: An Object-Oriented Software Suite for the Simulation and Design of Macromolecules
with: Andrew Leaver-Fay, Michael Tyka, Steven M. Lewis, Oliver F. Lange, James Thompson, Ron Jacak, Kristian Kaufman, P. Douglas Renfrew, Colin A. Smith, Will Sheffler, Ian W. Davis, Seth Cooper, Daniel J. Mandell, Florian Richter, Yih-En Andrew Ban, Sarel J. Fleishman, Jacob E. Corn, David E. Kim, Sergey Lyskov, Monica Berrondo, Stuart Mentzer, Zoran Popović, James J. Havranek, John Karanicolas, Rhiju Das, Jens Meiler, Tanja Kortemme, Jeffrey J. Gray, Brian Kuhlman, David Baker, Philip Bradley
Methods in Enzymology, Vol 487, 2011
[paper]

Predicting Protein Structures with a Multiplayer Online Game
with: Seth Cooper, Firas Khatib, Janos Barbero, Jeehyung Lee, Michael Beenen, Andrew Leaver-Fay, David Baker, Zoran Popović, and over 57,000 Foldit players
Nature, Vol 466, 5 August 2010
[project] [paper] [pdf] [video] [supplementary material]

Stable Spaces for Real-time Clothing
with: Edilson de Aguiar, Leonid Sigal, Jessica Hodgins
ACM Transactions on Graphics 29(3) (SIGGRAPH 2010)
[project] [paper] [video] [bibtex]

The Challenge of Designing Scientific Discovery Games
with: Seth Cooper, Janos Barbero, Andrew Leaver-Fay, Kathleen Tuite, Firas Khatib, Alex Cho Snyder, Michael Beenen, David Salesin, David Baker, Zoran Popović
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2010)
[project] [paper]

Modular Bases for Fluid Dynamics
with: Martin Wicke, Matthew Stanton
ACM Transactions on Graphics 28(3) (SIGGRAPH 2009)
[project] [paper]

Near-optimal Character Animation with Continuous Control
with: Yongjoon Lee, Zoran Popović
ACM Transactions on Graphics 26(3) (SIGGRAPH 2007)
[project] [paper] [bibtex]

Model Reduction for Real-time Fluids
with: Andrew Lewis, Zoran Popović
ACM Transactions on Graphics 25(3) (SIGGRAPH 2006)
[project] [paper] [bibtex]

Continuum Crowds
with: Seth Cooper, Zoran Popović
ACM Transactions on Graphics 25(3) (SIGGRAPH 2006)
[project] [paper] [bibtex]

Fluid Control Using the Adjoint Method
with: Antoine McNamara, Zoran Popović, Jos Stam
ACM Transactions on Graphics 23(3) (SIGGRAPH 2004)
[project] [paper] [bibtex]

Example-Based Stereo with General BRDFs
with: Aaron Hertzmann, Steve Seitz
8th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2004)
[project] [paper] [bibtex]

Keyframe Control of Smoke Simulations
with: Antoine McNamara, Zoran Popović, Jos Stam
ACM Transactions on Graphics 22(3) (SIGGRAPH 2003)
[project] [paper] [video] [bibtex]

Press

NOVA Science NOW: What the Future Will Be Like
Produced By: Joshua Seftel and Tobey List
PBS/NOVA Science NOW. 2013.
Winner of the 2013 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for Spot News/Feature Reporting.

New Videogame Lets Amateur Researchers Mess With RNA
By: Brendan I. Koerner
Wired Magazine. 07.05.12

EteRNA, an Online Game, Helps Build a New RNA Warehouse
By: John Markoff
The New York Times. January 10, 2011

Return to the fold: Playing with Proteins
The Economist. May 8th 2008

Graduate Students

Teaching

- 15-668: Advanced Parallel Graphics (Spring 2011)
- 15-462: Computer Graphics (Spring 2010)
- 15-462: Computer Graphics (Spring 2009)

(Image courtesy Henrik Wann Jensen)
- 15-867: The Animation of Natural Phenomena (Fall 2011)
- 15-869: The Animation of Natural Phenomena (Fall 2010)
- 15-869: The Animation of Natural Phenomena (Fall 2008)

(Image courtesy Doug James)

Awards

Okawa Foundation
Okawa Foundation Research Grant Recipient
Executive Office of the President
Invited Panelist for the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
MIT Technology Review
TR35: 2009 Young Innovators Under 35
National Science Foundation
Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
Emmy-nomination for the George Wensel Technical Achievement Award
Draft Tracks, based on my research and commericalized by Sportvision

Personal

My brother, Philippe Treuille, is an amazing composer. I'm proud to be his brother.

My grandfather just celebrated his 90th birthday by publishing a book of his world traveling adventures, art, and philosophical musings. You can learn more about him here.

My parents, my siblings, and I spent so much time playing a card game called Set, that back when I was a first year graduate student, I was compelled to write my own Set Applet. My sister is completely unbeatable.

If you are interested you can visit my tiny, extremely out-of-date photo album.