The Graphics & Spatial Computing Lab at Saint Mary’s University works at the intersection of computer graphics, 3D vision, geometric deep learning, and spatial computing — building scalable, learning-based algorithms for sensing and modelling the world in three dimensions. We’re always looking for curious, motivated students; see open positions below.
Current members
Faculty, affiliates, and the students driving the lab’s research.
Alumni Past thesis supervisions
Graduates of the lab and where their work took them next.
Collaborators Present & past
Researchers and partners we work with across institutions and industry.
Funding & partnerships
Grants, fellowships, and industry projects that support the lab’s work.
Grants & fellowships
- NSERC Discovery Development Grant 2026–2028
- NSERC Discovery Grant 2019–2026
- John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF), CFI 2022–2028
- NSBI Productivity Innovation Vouchers 2022–23, 2024–25
- Research Opportunities Fund, Research Nova Scotia 2022–2024
- MITACS Accelerate Cluster · with Modest Tree 2020–2024
- SMUWorks Grant, SMU 2018–2022
- MITACS Elevate Fellowship · with Dreamcraft Attractions 2018
- Eyes High Fellowship, University of Calgary 2015–2017
- MHRD PhD Scholarship, India 2011–2014
Industry & consulting projects
- Real-time Marine Assets Recognition from RGB Video · Modest Tree Media 2024–
- Real-time Object Recognition & Tracking for Immersive Training · Modest Tree Media 2021–2024
- Spheremesh Body Tracker for VR Darkrides · Dreamcraft Attractions, Victoria 2017–2018
- Cab Lamp Location Optimization for Hydraulic Excavators · Caterpillar India 2014–2015
We gratefully acknowledge NSERC, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Research Nova Scotia, and Saint Mary’s University for funding, and NVIDIA for GPU hardware support. Earlier work was funded by MITACS, Dreamcraft Attractions, and the University of Calgary (Eyes High). Thanks also to Modest Tree Media, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, ACENET, and NSBI.
Join the lab Open positions
We look for highly motivated students with strong records who want to work on hard problems in graphics, vision, and geometric learning.
PhD & MSc theses 1× PhD funded
A funded PhD position is open under the theme “Efficient topological deep learning for large-scale point cloud understanding and modelling”: scalable geometric and topological representations, learning on large 3D point clouds, and 3D scene understanding and reconstruction. Related problems in shape modelling, analysis, and matching are also welcome.
Email me (Show email) with your CV and transcripts (PDF). See the application procedure ↗.
Bachelor theses & internships Undergraduates
Undergraduates interested in computer graphics, computer vision, or deep learning — or the intersection of all three — are welcome for BSc Honours and research projects. SMU students can join through NSERC USRA, research assistantships, and SMUWorks; students from other universities are also welcome to reach out about summer internships and visiting research.
Reach out: Show email.
Research project supervisions SMU
Undergraduate and summer research projects mentored in the lab.
| Name | Topic | Funding | Year | Went to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avery Cao | LiDAR processing & labelling | — | 2025 | — |
| Varshita Venkatesh | Graph ML | — | 2025 | — |
| Abdiaziz Aden Muse | LiDAR data acquisition & labelling | NSERC USRA | 2024 | — |
| Jawadur Rahman | Point cloud segmentation | NSERC USRA | 2023 | cont. @ SMU |
| Sarosij Bose | Skeleton extraction for motion capture | MITACS GRI | 2022 | — |
| Shaquille Lynch | Point cloud feature extraction | SMUWorks | 2022 | cont. @ SMU |
| Praneetha R | RGB-D based object detection | MITACS | 2022 | — |
| Angus Anthony | Deep learning for curve generation | NSBI PIV & SMUWorks | 2021 | cont. @ SMU |
| Yi Zheng | GAT for point cloud segmentation | MITACS GRI | 2021 | — |
| Swaraj Shrestha | 2D reconstruction | Research project | 2021 | cont. @ SMU |
| Owen Sharpe | Procedural noise & sampling | NSERC DG | 2021 | University of Waterloo |
| Martin McLaren | 3D skeletons from point clouds | SMUWorks | 2020 | University of Alberta |
| Sheldon Taylor | Procedural noise generation | NSERC DG | 2020 | Amazon, Vancouver |
| Bivash Pandey | Shape matching via a modified shape context | SMUWorks | 2019–2020 | cont. @ SMU |
| Seamus MacInnes | Motion tracking using depth cameras | NSERC USRA | 2019, 2020 | Dalhousie University |
| Zesheng Jia | Proximity graphs for kinetic setting | NSERC DG | 2019 | — |
| Ayusha Pradhanga | Geometric shape extraction from 2D point sets | Dean’s Award | 2019 | Carleton University |
| Daniel Doucett | Skeleton extraction from point clouds | Research project | 2018–2019 | Perennia, Nova Scotia |
External mentorship Other institutes
Co-supervisions and internships mentored at partner institutions.
- Naved · MSc, CS University of Victoria · co-supervised
- Arthur Firmino · MSc, CS University of Victoria · co-supervised
- Han Zheng · Research project University of Victoria · co-supervised
- Chao Wang · Summer intern University of Calgary · co-supervised
- Anu G. Krishnan · M.Tech NITK & IIT Madras · co-supervised
- Amal Dev Parakkat · M.Tech, CS GEC Idukki & IIT Madras · co-supervised
- Sujata Sinha · Summer intern IIT Madras · co-supervised