Mixed Reality & AI Lab – Cambridge
Highlights
Introduction
“It’s an incredible time to be working on social presence. The convergence of mixed reality devices, new sensors, cloud compute, and deep generative models of images promises a revolution in how we communicate and collaborate. In just a handful of years we will be able to break through the flat rectangles of video conferencing and overcome the boundaries of space with lifelike, 3D social presence in mixed reality.”
–Jamie Shotton, Lab Director, Mixed Reality and AI Lab – Cambridge
The Microsoft Mixed Reality & AI Lab – Cambridge sits at the forefront of research, hardware, and software development in the field of social presence in mixed reality. Comprising a diverse, multidisciplinary team, we approach our work not just as an exciting technological opportunity, but with a responsibility to develop this new medium of 3D communication in an inclusive and ethical way. We combine insights in computer vision, machine learning, and graphics, to understand the motion, shape, and appearance of a user, and recreate their likeness remotely using advanced computer graphics and neural rendering algorithms. We guide our technological development by building human-centric experiences to ensure we design solutions that people will love to use.
Jamie Shotton, head of the lab and Partner Director of Science, has worked for nearly two decades at the intersection of computer vision, machine learning, graphics, and interaction, and has shipped ground-breaking products such as Azure Kinect, HoloLens 2, and Microsoft Mesh.
The Mixed Reality & AI Lab – Cambridge sits alongside Microsoft Research Lab – Cambridge, and works closely with partner teams in both Zurich and Belgrade.
The lab is currently recruiting diverse, world-class expertise across computer vision, graphics, machine learning, experience, and software engineering. You can find current openings on the Career opportunities tab.
Our focus areas
Neural rendering and generative image models; inside-out and outside-in human tracking of faces, bodies, and hands; parametric models of face, body, and hands; deep learning; 3D reconstruction; holoportation; avatars; advanced hardware and sensors; experiences.
Thoughts from our team
“I love that my job provides a continuous source of learning, I work with colleagues whom I can learn from, and we get to solve together fascinating real-world problems.”– Virginia Estellers, Senior Scientist
“This team is an enthralling mix of passionate people and future technology indistinguishable from magic.”– James Clemoes, Senior Scientist
“Working in the Mixed Reality & AI Lab has been a unique opportunity to shape the future of computing together with world-class engineers, researchers, and artists.”– Sebastian Dziadzio, Scientist
“I work on 3D vision, graphics and machine learning, with huge passions in bringing state-of-art techniques into mixed reality products. I’ve worked on projects including fully articulated hand tracking on HoloLens 2, 3D body tracking for Azure Kinect, and most recently real-time 3D holoportation.”– Jingjing Shen, Senior Scientist
