Ph.D. Student Songwei Ge Receives NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship

Songwei Ge, a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, recently received one of 10  NVIDIA Graduate Fellowships for his work on "Learning Artificial Creativity to Enhance Human Creativity." This project focuses on developing generative models for images and videos and aims to augment human creativity, enabling individuals to produce artistic content effortlessly, regardless of their skill level.

The NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship supports the research of promising students in the field of computer science and related areas. The award includes a scholarship of up to $60,000 and a high-end GPU.

“I am honored and thrilled to be awarded this fellowship, as it symbolizes not only a recognition of my dedication to the projects that I have been working on but also an affirmation of the potential impact of my research,” Ge shared. “This award serves as a motivating force, inspiring me to push the boundaries of innovation and contribute meaningfully to the field. I would never have been able to do it myself, and I would like to mention the support and guidance from my Ph.D. advisors and collaborators. I am eager to leverage this opportunity to make meaningful strides in my academic journey.” 

Ge’s work with Associate Professor Jia-Bin Huang, who holds the Capital One Endowed Professorship in Machine Learning and Computer Science, and Professor David Jacobs aims to create new methods for content generation and processes that allow for human-guided creation and user-friendly interfaces. This research falls under the broader umbrella of machine learning and computational creativity, seeking to enhance the capabilities of artificial intelligence in creative endeavors.

In discussing his work, Ge notes the historical relationship between human creativity and technological advancement. He draws parallels between his research and significant technological developments in art history.

“Human creativity has always been in a symbiotic and continually evolving relationship with technological development,” Ge said. “Impressionism develops with synthetic pigments, filmmaking starts with the zoopraxiscope and video games grow with computer-generated imagery. The creativity we can achieve with modern computing is vastly beyond our imagination.”

His ambitious goal of advancing creative technologies emphasizes innovation and inclusivity, aiming to revolutionize how people engage with the digital arts.

"My future research endeavors are dedicated to democratizing creative practices, such as filmmaking and game design," Ge said. "One of my goals is to enable everyone to be the director of their own movies and bring their artistic visions to life easily and affordably. To achieve this vision, I am now pursuing the top-to-bottom approach of controllable video generation and the bottom‑to-top way of animatable 3D scene and character synthesis."

Story by Samuel Malede Zewdu, CS Communications