Melissa Katz

PhD student, McGill University

About
Hello! I am a second-year PhD student in Computer Science at McGill University, under the supervision of Paul Kry and Sheldon Andrews, who were also my supervisors during my Master's. My research area is computer graphics, more specifically physics-based animation. I am greatly interested in the simulation of natural phenomena, applications in AR/VR, and digital twins, although I love engaging with just about any emerging graphics research.
Research
Rig My Ride: Automatic Rigging of Physics-Based Characters for Games
Melissa Katz, Paul G. Kry, Sheldon Andrews
Symposium on Computer Animation (published in PACMGIT), 2025
Crowned as best poster!
Personal Projects
CUBS (A Collection of Useful Blender Scripts)
While working on my Rig My Ride, I created a few Blender scripts to make my figures pop. If anyone also wants awesome figures they are more than welcome to use / adapt these scripts. Suggestions for new scripts to add are also welcome!
Teaching
I was a teaching assistant for the following McGill courses:
  • COMP 360 (Algorithm Design), Fall 2023
  • COMP 557 (Introduction to Computer Graphics), Winter 2024, Fall 2025, Fall 2026
  • ECSE 546 (Advanced Image Synthesis), Fall 2024
  • COMP 250 (Introduction to Computer Science), Winter 2025
  • COMP 559 (Introduction to Computer Animation), Winter 2026