Ryan Goldade

Ryan Goldade

Research Scientist @ Meta Reality Labs Research

I am a Research Scientist at Meta Reality Labs Research, where I focus on the intersection of physics-based simulation and machine learning. My current work involves developing differentiable simulation frameworks for anatomically-inspired human models and building efficient, neural-based pipelines for real-time avatar dynamics.

Before joining Meta, I spent several years as a Simulation Developer at SideFX, contributing to the core FLIP-based fluid solvers in the VFX software package Houdini. I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, where my research in fluid simulation and numerical PDEs earned the 2021 Alain Fournier Dissertation Award.

My research has been featured in Motherboard, 80 Level, the SIGGRAPH 2019 and 2020 Technical Papers Preview, and Two Minute Papers 2019 and 2020. My PhD research has been incorporated into Houdini as the air incompressibility features (16.5) and adaptive viscosity (18.5). I also designed several new features for the Houdini fluid simulation pipeline, such as the surface tension and suction fluid tools (16.0), narrow-band FLIP (16.5, 17.0, 17.5), air incompressibility (16.5), new ocean simulation tools (guided volumes and boundary layer) (16.0), and adaptive pressure projection (18.0).

Research & Technical Interests

  • Differentiable Simulation: Integrating physics engines into optimization pipelines (PyTorch/C++) for high-fidelity body and hand tracking.
  • Neural Physics: Designing autoregressive ML models (VAEs, Graph NNs) for stable, extreme-performance secondary dynamics on compute-limited hardware.
  • Fluid Dynamics: Expertise in very-high-resolution fluid simulation, vortex-particle methods, and large-scale parallel numerical solvers.
  • Avatar Synthesis: Creating drivable, physics-based rigs with active elastic materials for realistic digital humans.

Publications

Publications at top-tier graphics conferences. See Google Scholar.

Work Experience

  • Meta Reality Labs Research – Research Scientist | May 2020 - Present
  • SideFX – Simulation Developer (part-time) | April 2016 - May 2020
  • Weta Digital – Simulation Intern | June 2018 - July 2018
  • IST Austria – Research Intern | February 2014 - June 2014
  • Microsoft – Research Intern | November 2012 - September 2013

Education

  • University of Waterloo – Ph.D., Computer Science | 2021
  • Simon Fraser University – M.A.Sc., Engineering Science | 2014
  • Simon Fraser University – B.A.Sc., Engineering Science | 2009

Awards

  • Alain Fournier Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Computer Graphics | 2021
  • Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship in Science & Technology | 2016 ($15,000)
  • President’s Graduate Scholarship | 2016 ($10,000)
  • Graduate Excellence Award In Computer Science | 2016 ($5,000)
  • Graduate Excellence Award In Computer Science | 2015 ($5,000)
  • University of Waterloo Graduate Entrance Scholarship | 2014 ($5,000)