Dr. Z. (Zerrin) Yumak

Dr. Z. (Zerrin) Yumak

Assistant Professor
Human-Centered Computing
+03 253 4116
z.yumak@uu.nl

I am a tenured assistant professor at the Human-Centered Computing Group, Department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and director of the Motion Capture and Virtual Reality Lab. I obtained my PhD degree in Computer Science from MIRALab, University of Geneva.  I was a scientific collaborator at the HCI Group in EPFL, Switzerland. Following that, I have been at the Institute for Media Innovation, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore as a research fellow.

My research is on believable virtual humans and social robots. I work on computational models of social and emotional behaviors and expressive character animation combining methods from computer graphics,  artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. My research is interdisciplinary with applications in games, virtual reality and robotics:

  • Expressive character animation (e.g. face, gaze, gestures..)
  • Social interaction and groups of virtual characters
  • Machine learning and deep learning models for character animation
  • Autonomous behavior for virtual humans and social robots
  • Modelling emotion and memory for virtual humans and social robots