Hello! I'm Cuong 👋
I’m a senior research scientist at Adobe Research, San Francisco, California. My research sits at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and creativity. I study creative practices in domains such as motion graphics, VR/AR, and video, and invent novel AI-powered authoring experiences. I am particularly interested in augmenting human creativity using frontier models. I seek to apply HCI principles to harness the generative power and rich prior knowledge of these models to build useful, reliable, and intelligent creative assistants. My current research focus is on agentic motion graphics authoring.
I received my PhD in Computer Science in 2017. I was advised by Professor Feng Liu in the Computer Graphics & Vision Lab at Portland State University. My research has received Best Paper Honorable Mention awards at ACM CHI 2013, 2015, and 2017. My work were shown in Adobe MAX Sneaks CloverVR (2017), Pronto (2019), and Scenic (2024). My PhD’s dissertation explores 360 degree video authoring tools in VR. This research led to a successful technology transfer to Adobe’s Premiere Pro, which ultimately earned a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award in 2025 (article).
I was born and raised in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam 🇻🇳. I live in San Francisco now with my wife and kiddos. I love sports and fitness. I trained in powerlifting for a couple years. My best PR at deadlift is 415 lbs and I'm very proud of it. I've recently shifted to Olympic lifting and learning a lot. Always happy to chat about these topics!
Tech Transfer
Publications
2026
David Chuan-En Lin, Cuong Nguyen, Hijung Valentina Shin, Nikolas Martelaro
ACM IUI 2026.
Xia Su, Cuong Nguyen, Matheus A. Gadelha, Jon E. Froehlich
arXiv.
2025
Chen Chen, Cuong Nguyen, Alexa Siu, Dingzeyu Li, Nadir Weibel
International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (2025).
2024
Chen Chen, Cuong Nguyen, Thibault Groueix, Vladimir G. Kim, Nadir Weibel
ACM TOCHI. Presented at UIST 2024.
2023
Chen Chen, Cuong Nguyen, Jane Hoffswell, Jennifer Healey, Trung Bui, Nadir Weibel
In Proceedings of UIST 2023
Anika Sayara, Emily Lynn Chen, Cuong Nguyen, Robert Xiao, Dongwook Yoon
In Proceedings of UIST 2023
Yongqi Zhang, Cuong Nguyen, Rubaiat Habib Kazi, Lap-Fai Yu
In Proceedings of UIST 2023
Emilie Yu, Kevin Blackburn-Matzen, Cuong Nguyen, Oliver Wang, Rubaiat Habib Kazi, Adrien Bousseau
In Proceedings of ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH) 2023
Zeyu Wang, Cuong Nguyen, Paul Asente, Julie Dorsey
In Proceedings of CHI 2023
Niu Chen, Frances Sin, Laura Herman, Ivan Song, Dongwook Yoon
In Proceedings of ISS 2023
Rawan Alghofaili, Cuong Nguyen, Vojtch Krs, Nathan Carr, Radomir Mech, Lap-Fai Yu
In Proceedings of IEEE VR 2023
2021
German Leiva, Jens Emil Sloth Grnbk, Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose, Cuong Nguyen, Paul Asente, Rubaiat Habib Kazi
In Proceedings of UIST 2021
Zeyu Wang, Cuong Nguyen, Paul Asente, Julie Dorsey
In ACM CHI, 2021
2020
Balasaravanan Thoravi Kumaravel, Cuong Nguyen, Stephen DiVerdi, Bjoern Hartmann
In ACM UIST, 2020
Jeremy Hartmann, Stephen DiVerdi, Cuong Nguyen, Daniel Vogel
In ACM UIST, 2020
German Leiva, Cuong Nguyen, Rubaiat Habib Kazi, Paul Asente
In ACM CHI, 2020
Roberto A. Montano-Murillo, Cuong Nguyen, Rubaiat Habib Kazi, Sriram Subramanian, Stephen DiVerdi, Diego Martinez-Plasencia
In IEEE VR, 2020 (Conference Paper)
2019
Kevin Chow, Caitlin Coyiuto, Cuong Nguyen, Dongwook Yoon
In ACM CSCW, 2019
Balasaravanan Thoravi Kumaravel, Cuong Nguyen, Stephen DiVerdi, Bjoern Hartmann
In ACM CHI, 2019
2012 - 2018
Cuong Nguyen, Stephen DiVerdi, Aaron Hertzmann, Feng Liu
In ACM CHI, 2018
2017
Cuong Nguyen, Stephen DiVerdi, Aaron Hertzmann, Feng Liu
In ACM UIST, 2017
Cuong Nguyen, Stephen DiVerdi, Aaron Hertzmann, Feng Liu
In ACM CHI, 2017 🏆 (best paper honorable mention award)
2016
2015
Cuong Nguyen, Feng Liu
In ACM CHI, 2015 🏆 (best paper honorable mention award)
2014
Cuong Nguyen, Wu-chi Feng, Feng Liu
Information Visualization
Cuong Nguyen, Yuzhen Niu, Feng Liu
In ACM MobileHCI, 2014
2013
Cuong Nguyen, Yuzhen Niu, Feng Liu
In ACM CHI, 2013 🏆 (best paper honorable mention award)
2012
Cuong Nguyen, Yuzhen Niu, Feng Liu
In ACM CHI, 2012