David Hyde

Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science, Vanderbilt University
dabh -at- alumni.stanford.edu

Brief bio: David Hyde is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, with a secondary appointment as Assistant Professor of Engineering Management. He was first a Regents Scholar at UCSB, earning a B.S. in Mathematics with highest honors at age 19. Hyde then earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science (with Distinction in Teaching) from Stanford, where he was a DoD NDSEG Fellow and a Gerald J. Lieberman Fellow. He also earned M.S. degrees in computer science and applied math. Most recently, David was a PIC Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. Hyde's research has been supported by organizations including DARPA, the Department of Energy, and the Army Research Lab. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, and was a SIAM Science Policy Fellow from 2022-2024. Hyde has also helped build successful technology companies and invests in startups via Brave Capital.
Full CV available upon request.

Research keywords: Computational Physics, Computer Graphics, Deep Learning, Cloud Computing, Cyberinfrastructure

Research summary: Professor Hyde leads the Simulation, Optimization, and Learning (SOL) laboratory at Vanderbilt University. His group creates new algorithms and numerical methods for problems in and at the intersections of these three fields. A particular emphasis is on developing techniques for simulating physical phenomena that involve solids and fluids. These simulations are useful for engineering and computer graphics, as well as for providing data and constraints for learning-based systems. Hyde and his group also build cloud computing platforms, create scalable heterogeneous implementations of algorithms, and develop practical software, libraries, and datasets relevant to their research focus. The SOL lab ultimately seeks to illuminate the synergies between simulation, learning, and data, and to leverage these connections to solve complex real-world challenges.

News/Media

  • (2025-08-22) Thrilled to receive $1.6M in support from the NSF to build new software cyberinfrastructure for physical intelligence with my colleagues. Stay tuned!
  • (2025-05-19) Thanks to Amanda Chin for the recent and timely interview on the risks of deepfakes and recent legislation.
  • (2025-05-06) Excited to have won the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering Rising Star Research Award . A huge thank you to my collaborators, students, and colleagues!
  • (2025-03-28) An amazing time hosting the Critical and Emerging Technology Summit at Vanderbilt University, Social post . Social post available to like and share. Thank you to everyone who participated and contributed!
  • (2025-01-21) Happy to see that our PASC24 paper, most downloaded paper on learning-enhanced Boussinesq flow simulation is the most downloaded paper from the conference.
  • (2025-01-16) Grateful to be interviewed on WKRN with Kenley Hargett about VPNs and online age verification laws.
  • (2025-01-01) Thanks to Kenley Hargett and the WKRN team for the interview on the infamous Y2K bug.
  • (2024-12-19) Honored to have won an NSF CAREER Award to support a new project on building cyberinfrastructure for emerging technologies like AI and quantum.
  • (2024-12-17) Thank you to NVIDIA for awarding a number of GPUs to our lab via the Academic Grant program.
  • (2024-10-11) So many insightful discussions at the SIAM Quantum Intersections Convening . Thank you to the co-organizers and to all the participants!
  • (2024-10-08) Timely interview on recent cybersecurity incidents on The National Desk with Geoff Harris. Thank you for the opportunity!
  • (2024-08-23) Ph.D. student Chang-Yong Song won a Best Poster Award for his poster, SCA 2024 at SCA 2024. Congratulations!
  • (2024-07-16) Thanks to Geoff Harris and the team at The National Desk for the interview on cybersecurity around Amazon Prime Day.
  • (2024-07-05) Great event on post-quantum cryptography at King's College Cambridge. Thank you to the hosts and organizers!
  • (2024-05-24) Happy to be serving on the steering committee for the SIAM Quantum Intersections Convening happening this October. Please spread the word and apply to attend!
  • (2024-05-15) Press release on our group's latest paper, to be presented at PASC24.
  • (2024-05-01) Part II of our SIAM News series on applied mathematics and quantum computing is now available, here ! Read the full issue here.
  • (2024-04-01) Our SIAM News series on applied mathematics and quantum computing is now live, here, SIAM Science Policy Fellowship ! The full print issue is available here. Thanks to the SIAM Science Policy Fellowship for supporting this effort.
  • (2023-10-20) Excited to begin a new NSF-funded project on extending our cloud computing work and applying it to computational glaciology.
  • (2023-08-15) Nice coverage of our Seeding Success grant's success in helping us unlock NSF funding. Thank you!
  • (2023-06-30) Excited to announce, ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award the receipt of the ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award to support a new project on sonoluminescence!
  • (2023-03-20) Looking forward to hosting a minisymposium on deep learning, preconditioning, and linear solvers at ICIAM 2023. See you in Tokyo!
  • (2022-06-28) Thankful for the support of a new Seeding Success grant to develop a novel cloud computing platform. More to come!
  • (2022-01-07) Grateful to have received a SIAM Science Policy Fellowship to help with computational science and applied math advocacy for the next two years.
  • (2021-05-10) My render from our latest paper, thumbnail, SIGGRAPH 2021 Trailer is featured in (and the thumbnail of!) the SIGGRAPH 2021 Trailer.
  • (2020-05-28) Small writeup, CHI paper of our award-winning CHI paper in the Stanford Engineering magazine.
  • (2019-04-08) The main paper behind my thesis is now available online through JCP.
  • (2018-10-04) Our review paper, most downloaded on deep learning and multiphase flow is one of the most downloaded recent articles in JCP!
  • (2018-07-10) Honored to receive the Gerald J. Lieberman fellowship, one of twelve top graduate students across the entire university in terms of research, teaching, and service.
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Publications

CulinaryCut-VLAP: A Vision–Language–Action–Physics Framework for Food Cutting via a Force-Aware Material Point Method

H. Koh, C. Song, Y. Choi, M. Viveiros, D. Hyde, H. Lee

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PhysMorph-GS: Differentiable Shape Morphing via Joint Optimization of Physics and Rendering Objectives

C. Song and D. Hyde

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Less is More: Data-Efficient Adaptation for Controllable Text-to-Video Generation

S. Cheng, N. Kulkarni, D. Hyde, D. Smirnov

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Efficient Sliced Wasserstein Distance Computation via Adaptive Bayesian Optimization

M. Acharya and D. Hyde

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Remotely Seeing Is Believing: How Trust in Cyber-Physical Systems Evolves Through Virtual Observation

Z. Jin, K. Xiao, D. Hyde

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A New Algorithm for Applying Sequences of Affine Transformations in Quantum Circuits

A. Giri, D. Hyde, K. Varga

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CUBAN: Leveraging Semantic Comparables to Predict Financial Metrics Using Textual Descriptions of Companies

S. Bae and D. Hyde
2024 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData), 2024

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A Differentiable Material Point Method Framework for Shape Morphing

M. Xu, C. Song, D. Levin, D. Hyde
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2025

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Automated Synthesis of Quantum Algorithms via Classical Numerical Techniques

Y. Huang, B. Grossman-Ponemon, D. Hyde
ACM Transactions on Quantum Computing, 2025

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A Thermomechanical Hybrid Incompressible Material Point Method

V. Kala, J. Chen, D. Hyde, A. Stomakhin, J. Teran

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Compelling ReLU Networks to Exhibit Exponentially Many Linear Regions at Initialization and During Training

M. Milkert, D. Hyde, F. Laine
Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning, 2025-07

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Anvil: An integration of artificial intelligence, sampling techniques, and a combined CAD-CFD tool

H. Vardhan, U. Timalsina, M. Sandborn, D. Hyde, P. Volgyesi, J. Sztipanovits
Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Design Automation for CPS and IoT (DESTION 2024), 2024

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Toward Improving Boussinesq Flow Simulations by Learning with Compressible Flow

N. Mangnike and D. Hyde
PASC '24: Proceedings of the Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing Conference, 2024

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Sample-Efficient and Surrogate-Based Design Optimization of Underwater Vehicle Hulls

H. Vardhan, D. Hyde, U. Timalsina, P. Volgyesi, J. Sztipanovits
Ocean Engineering, 2024-11

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The Pandemic did not Interrupt LA's Violence Interrupters

J. Ren, K. Santoso, D. Hyde, A. Bertozzi, P. Brantingham
Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 2022

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A Deep Conjugate Direction Method for Iteratively Solving Linear Systems

A. Kaneda, O. Akar, J. Chen, V. Kala, D. Hyde, J. Teran
Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning, 2023

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A Robust Grid-Based Meshing Algorithm for Embedding Self-Intersecting Surfaces

S. Gagniere, Y. Han, Y. Chen, D. Hyde, A. Marquez-Razon, J. Teran, R. Fedkiw
Computer Graphics Forum, 2023

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Cross-Technology Innovation Trends and Evidence with Patent and Funding Data

D. Hyde and E. Fu
World Patent Information, 2022

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Note

A Momentum-Conserving Implicit Material Point Method for Surface Tension with Contact Angles and Spatial Gradients

J. Chen, V. Kala, A. Marquez-Razon, E. Gueidon, D. Hyde, J. Teran
ACM TOG (SIGGRAPH 2021 Technical Papers), 2021

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Emotion Classification and Textual Clustering Techniques for Gang Intervention Data

R. Wu, C. Yang, D. Hyde, A. Bertozzi, P. Brantingham
Data Science for Smart and Connected Communities Workshop, IEEE Big Data, 2020

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Analyzing Effectiveness of Gang Interventions using Koopman Operator Theory

S. Wen, A. Chen, T. Bhatia, N. Liskij, D. Hyde, A. Bertozzi, P. Brantingham
Data Science for Smart and Connected Communities Workshop, IEEE Big Data, 2020

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On Obtaining Sparse Semantic Solutions for Inverse Problems, Control, and Neural Network Training

D. Hyde, M. Bao, R. Fedkiw
Journal of Computational Physics, 2021

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An Implicit Updated Lagrangian Formulation for Liquids with Large Surface Energy

D. Hyde, S. Gagniere, A. Marquez-Razon, J. Teran
ACM TOG (SIGGRAPH Asia 2020 Technical Papers), 2020

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Improved Search Strategies with Application to Estimating Facial Blendshape Parameters

M. Bao, D. Hyde, X. Hua, R. Fedkiw

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A Hybrid Lagrangian/Eulerian Collocated Velocity Advection and Projection Method for Fluid Simulation

S. Gagniere, D. Hyde, A. Marquez-Razon, C. Jiang, Z. Ge, X. Han, Qi Guo, J. Teran
Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2020 (SCA 2020)), 2020

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Assessing the Effects of Failure Alerts on Transitions of Control from Autonomous Driving Systems

E. Fu, D. Hyde, S. Sibi, M. Johns, M. Fischer, D. Sirkin
Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV 2020), 2020-10

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Is Too Much System Caution Counterproductive? Effects of Varying Sensitivity and Automation Levels in Vehicle Collision Avoidance Systems

E. Fu, M. Johns, D. Hyde, S. Sibi, M. Fischer, D. Sirkin
Proceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2020

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Award

A Unified Approach to Monolithic Solid-Fluid Coupling of Sub-Grid and More Resolved Solids

D. Hyde and R. Fedkiw
Journal of Computational Physics, 2019-08

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VRGE: An Immersive Visualization Application for the Geosciences

D. Hyde, T. Hall, J. Caers
Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE Conference on Scientific Visualization (SciVis '18), 2018

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Assessing and Visualizing Uncertainty of 3D Geological Surfaces Using Level Sets with Stochastic Motion

L. Yang, D. Hyde, O. Grujic, C. Scheidt, J. Caers
Computers and Geosciences, 2019-01

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Distributing and Load Balancing Sparse Fluid Simulations

C. Shah, D. Hyde, H. Qu, P. Levis
Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2018 (SCA 2018)), 2018

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Sharp Interface Approaches and Deep Learning Techniques for Multiphase Flows

F. Gibou, D. Hyde, R. Fedkiw
Journal of Computational Physics, 2019

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FRC: A High-Performance Concurrent Parallel Deferred Reference Counter for C++

C. Tripp, D. Hyde, B. Grossman-Ponemon
Proceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on Memory Management (ISMM '18), 2018

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A Robust Volume Conserving Method for Character-Water Interaction

M. Lee, D. Hyde, K. Li, R. Fedkiw
Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH / Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2019 (SCA 2019), 2019

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A Skinned Tetrahedral Mesh for Hair Animation and Hair-Water Interaction

M. Lee, D. Hyde, M. Bao, R. Fedkiw
IEEE TVCG, 2018

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Knotting Fingerprints Resolve Knot Complexity and Knotting Pathways in Ideal Knots

D. Hyde, J. Henrich, E. Rawdon, K. Millett
Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter (Special Issue on Knots), 2015

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Group

Ph.D. Students
  • Nurshat Menglik (B.S., Peking University)
    Dean's Graduate Fellow, Russell G. Hamilton Scholar
  • Shihan Cheng (B.S., University of Science and Technology of China)
  • Chang-Yong Song (M.S., Korea University)
  • Max Milkert (B.S., Milwaukee School of Engineering)
  • Bibek Dhungana (B.S., Texas Tech University)
  • Huy Tran (B.S., University of Memphis)
Postdoctoral Scholars
  • Tianrun Gao (Ph.D., Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
Alumni
  • Alan Marquez-Razon (Ph.D., UCLA): Postdoctoral Scholar (2022-2023)
    NSF MPS-Ascend Postdoctoral Fellow

Supporters

We gratefully acknowledge support from the following organizations: