PhD Candidate at UCL

I am a human-computer interaction researcher focused on interpersonal and human-AI collaboration in mixed reality. My work examines how spatial environments mediate collaboration, with a focus on how they can be computationally parsed, represented, and transformed to enable new forms of situated action and shared understanding across diverse situations and modalities. As part of my PhD in the VECG Group at University College London, I focus specifically on asymmetric collaboration in mixed reality, where collaborators operate with differing roles, capabilities, or interfaces, and spatial context shapes interaction. More broadly, my work is situated at the intersection of human-computer interaction, computer vision, computer-supported cooperative work, and generative AI.

I am currently a research intern in the BIRD Lab (Blended Interaction Research & Devices) at Google. I hold a BSc and MSc in Computer Science and have previously completed research internships at Niantic Labs, Microsoft Research, and TNO Research, and worked as a data scientist at IBM.

Education
Jul. 2021 — Dec. 2025

Ph.D. Computer ScienceUniversity College London

Research group: Virtual Environments and Computer Graphics (VECG). Topic: “Constructing Shared Space: Designing for Asymmetry in Collaborative Mixed Reality”. Supervisors: Prof. Anthony Steed (primary) and Prof. Simon Julier (secondary).
Feb. 2018 — Oct. 2020

M.Sc. Computer ScienceDelft University of Technology

Track: Data Science & Technology; Thesis: “Generative RGB-D Face Completion for Head-Mounted Display Removal”; Supervisors: Prof. Pablo Cesar (TU Delft, CWI) and Dr. Frank ter Haar (TNO).
Sep. 2013 — Feb. 2018

B.Sc. Computer ScienceLeiden University

Thesis: “A Comparative Performance Analysis of Feature Description Algorithms”. Supervisor: Prof. Michael Lew.
Work Experience
May. 2025 — Sep. 2025

Research / Software Engineering InternGoogle

  • Continuing my research on the future of multimodal AI-driven AR interfaces at the Blended Interaction Research & Devices (BIRD) lab from Google’s offices in the Bay Area.
Dec. 2024 — May. 2025

Student ResearcherGoogle

  • Conducted research on the future of multimodal AI-driven AR interfaces at the Blended Interaction Research & Devices (BIRD) lab under the mentorship of Mar Gonzalez-Franco, Eric Gonzalez, Ruofei Du and Harish Kulkarni.
  • Led the research and writing of a first-author paper currently in preparation. Additionally, contributed to three other publications, including one accepted for presentation at ACM UIST ‘25.
Oct. 2023 — Jun. 2024

Research InternNiantic Labs

  • Conducted research on the future of location-based AR authoring under the mentorship of Jessica van Brummelen and Gabriel Brostow as a part-time internship during my Ph.D. studies.
  • Authored a first-author paper on CoCreatAR at ACM CHI ‘25, which received a Best Paper Honorable Mention award and had a related non-provisional patent application filed. A follow-up work will be presented as a poster at ACM UIST ‘25.
May 2023 — Sept. 2023

Research InternMicrosoft Research

Oct. 2020 — Jul. 2021

Data ScientistIBM

  • Built and deployed custom ML models to solve client-specific problems and improve enterprise processes.
  • Presented insights to technical and non-technical stakeholders to support strategic decisions.
Feb. 2020 — Oct. 2020

Cloud Solution Architect Intern (Data & AI)Microsoft

  • Developed data models and analytics solutions for global clients and internal teams.
  • Designed a proof-of-concept system using a data-driven approach to improve data center construction management.
Jul. 2019 — Aug. 2020

Research InternNetherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO Research)

  • Conducted research towards a novel approach to head-mounted display (HMD) removal within RGB-D images at the Intelligent Imaging group under the mentorship of Frank ter Haar.
  • Designed and evaluated a generative adversarial network (GAN) for the joint inpainting of RGB-D images. Described the results in my MSc thesis as well as a paper at the VHCIE workshop at IEEE VR 2021.
Publications
Conference & Journal Papers
Apr. 2025

CoCreatAR: Enhancing Authoring of Outdoor Augmented Reality Experiences Through Asymmetric Collaboration

Nels Numan, Gabriel Brostow, Suhyun Park, Simon Julier, Anthony Steed, Jessica Van Brummelen
43rd ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI 2025)
  • ★ Best Paper Honorable Mention (top 5% of submissions)
  • Patent Pending
  • Oct. 2024

    SpaceBlender: Creating Context-Rich Collaborative Spaces Through Generative 3D Scene Blending

    Nels Numan*, Shwetha Rajaram*, Balasaravanan Thoravi Kumaravel, Nicolai Marquardt, Andrew D. Wilson
    37th ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST 2024)
  • Patent Pending
  • Oct. 2024

    BlendScape: Enabling End-User Customization of Video-Conferencing Environments Through Generative AI

    Shwetha Rajaram*, Nels Numan*, Balasaravanan Thoravi Kumaravel, Nicolai Marquardt, Andrew D. Wilson
    37th ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (ACM UIST 2024)
  • ★ Best Paper Honorable Mention (top 1.5% of submissions)
  • Patent Pending (US Patent App. 18/542,501)
  • Mar. 2024

    DreamCodeVR: Towards Democratizing Behavior Design in Virtual Reality with Speech-Driven Programming

    Daniele Giunchi, Nels Numan, Elia Gatti, Anthony Steed
    31st IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (IEEE VR 2024)
    Oct. 2023

    Extending the Open-Source Social Virtual Reality Ecosystem to the Browser in Ubiq

    Sebastian Friston, Ben Congdon, Nels Numan, Klara Brandstätter, Lisa Izzouzi, Felix Thiel, Jingyi Zhang, Daniele Giunchi, David Swapp, Anthony Steed
    28th International ACM Conference on 3D Web Technology (ACM Web3D 2023)
    Mar. 2023

    Immersive Competence and Immersive Literacy: Exploring How Users Learn about Immersive Experiences

    Anthony Steed, Daniel Archer, Lisa Izzouzi, Nels Numan, Kalila Shapiro, David Swapp, Dinah Lammiman, Rob Lindeman
    Frontiers in Virtual Reality
    Nov. 2022

    Exploring User Behaviour in Asymmetric Collaborative Mixed Reality

    Nels Numan, Anthony Steed
    28th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (ACM VRST 2022)
    Oct. 2022

    Ubiq-Exp: a Toolkit to Build and Run Remote and Distributed Mixed Reality Experiments

    Anthony Steed, Lisa Izzouzi, Klara Brandstätter, Sebastian Friston, Benjamin Congdon, Otto Olkkonen, Daniele Giunchi, Nels Numan, David Swapp
    Frontiers in Virtual Reality
    Posters & Workshop Papers
    Mar. 2024

    StreamSpace: A Framework for Window Streaming in Collaborative Mixed Reality Environments

    Daniele Giunchi, Riccardo Bovo, Nels Numan, Anthony Steed
    31st IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (IEEE VR 2024)
    Mar. 2024

    AIsop: Exploring Immersive VR Storytelling Leveraging Generative AI

    Elia Gatti, Daniele Giunchi, Nels Numan, Anthony Steed
    31st IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (IEEE VR 2024)
    Mar. 2023

    Ubiq-Genie: Leveraging External Frameworks for Enhanced Social VR Experiences

    Nels Numan, Daniele Giunchi, Benjamin Congdon, Anthony Steed
    OAT: 2nd Workshop on Open Access Tools and Libraries for Virtual Reality (IEEE VR 2023)
    Mar. 2023

    Towards Outdoor Collaborative Mixed Reality: Lessons Learnt from a Prototype System

    Nels Numan, Ziwen Lu, Benjamin Congdon, Daniele Giunchi, Alexandros Rotsidis, Andreas Lernis, Kyriakos Larmos, Tereza Kourra, Panayiotis Charalambous, Yiorgos Chrysanthou, Simon Julier, Anthony Steed
    ReDigiTS: 2nd Workshop on 3D Reconstruction, Digital Twinning, and Simulation for Virtual Experiences (IEEE VR 2023)
    Mar. 2021

    Generative RGB-D Face Completion for Head-Mounted Display Removal

    Nels Numan, Frank ter Haar, Pablo Cesar
    VHCIE: 6th Workshop on Virtual Humans and Crowds for Immersive Environments (IEEE VR 2021)
    Mar. 2019

    Star Tag: a Superhuman Sport to Promote Physical Activity

    Nels Numan, Ayla Kolster, Niels Hoogerwerf, Bernd Kreynen, Jeanique Romeijnders, Tomas Heinsohn Huala, Nestor Z. Salamon, J. Timothy Balint, Stephan Lukosch, Rafael Bidarra
    SHS: 1st Workshop on Superhuman Sports (IEEE VR 2019)
    Service & Teaching
    Reviewer
  • ★ Special Recognition for Outstanding Review (2025)
  • 2× ★ Special Recognition for Outstanding Review (2025)
  • ★ Special Recognition for Outstanding Review (2024)
  • 2025—2026

    Web Co-Chair

    2021—2024

    Postgraduate Teaching AssistantUniversity College London

    • Virtual Environments (COMP0113) with Prof. Anthony Steed
    • Systems Engineering (COMP0016) with Prof. Dean Mohamedally
    2022—2024

    Mentor

    • Molly Zhu (thesis project, UCL ME Computer Science): Real-Time Speech Captioning and Visualization with Ubiq-Genie
    • Rowan Meng (summer intern, UCL): Embodied LLM-based Programming with Ubiq-Genie
    • Aiman Sohail (summer intern, Queen Mary University): Generative Storytelling in Social VR with Ubiq-Genie
    • Pruetikorn Chirattitikarn (thesis project, UCL MSc Computer Science): Exploring Environmental Representations in Collaborative MR
    • Angela Yu (thesis project, UCL MEng Computer Science): Interactive Avatar Appearance Modelling with Generative AI
    • Praveen Selvaraj (thesis project, UCL MSc Computer Science): Escape Room in Asymmetric Collaborative MR
    Grants & Awards
    Apr. 2025

    Best Paper Honorable Mention at ACM CHI '25

    CoCreatAR: Enhancing Authoring of Outdoor Augmented Reality Experiences Through Asymmetric Collaboration
    Jan. 2025

    Departmental Travel Grant

    UCL Computer Science
    Oct. 2024

    Best Paper Honorable Mention at ACM UIST '24

    BlendScape: Enabling End-User Customization of Video-Conferencing Environments Through Generative AI
    Oct. 2024

    Departmental Travel Grant

    UCL Computer Science
    Jul. 2021 — Jul. 2024

    Ph.D. Studentship

    European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (Project RISE), grant no. 739578.
    Oct. 2023

    Honorable Mention for Best Design Award at ISMAR 2023 Student Competition

    Reviving the Euston Arch: A Mixed Reality Approach to Cultural Heritage Tours
    Jun. 2022

    UCL Nominee for Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship

    Mar. 2019

    Conference Travel Grant

    Delft Sports Engineering Institute
    Skills
    Programming Languages and Frameworks
  • Python
  • C++
  • C#
  • Java
  • JavaScript
  • Node.js
  • TypeScript
  • PHP
  • R
  • SQL
  • TensorFlow
  • PyTorch
  • MRTK
  • Niantic ARDK
  • Software and Services
  • Unity
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe InDesign
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • GCP
  • Current Work Eligibility
  • European Union
  • United Kingdom (part-time)
  • United States