Nicholas Pfaff
Graduate Researcher
San Francisco, California, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolNicholas Pfaff is a robotics-focused PhD researcher at MIT CSAIL with six years of experience building realistic simulation and perception systems for robot locomotion and manipulation. He has contributed to high-impact open-source NeRF tooling—improving alpha transparency, point-cloud generation, and TSDF mesh export—to help scale photorealistic rendering and data pipelines for robotic vision. His internships at Toyota Research Institute and Ocado emphasized generative simulation and robust 3D grasp reasoning, bridging large behavior models with practical system robustness. Trained at Imperial College and an IB alumnus with near-perfect scores, he combines strong academic pedigree with hands-on software and research engineering across industry and lab settings. Notably, he pairs simulation-scaling research with pragmatism in data handling and rendering optimizations that accelerate real-world robot perception experiments.
6 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Engineering - MEng Electronic and Information Engineering, Master of Engineering - MEng Electronic and Information Engineering at Imperial College LondonHigh School Diploma International Baccalaureate, High School Diploma International Baccalaureate at St. Clare's, OxfordBrentwood College SchoolDoctor of Philosophy - PhD Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyStiftsschule Engelberg
English, German
Stackoverflow
647reputation
118kreached
4answers
11questions
Github Skills (25)
pytorch10
3d-graphics10
python10
machine-learning10
n10
deeplearning-ai10
deep-learning10
f10
computer-vision10
3d-reconstruction10
load-data9
data-processing9
data-loading9
dataloader9
data-handling9
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
nerfstudio-project/nerfstudio
Nov 2022 - Dec 2025
A collaboration friendly studio for NeRFs
Role in this project:
ML Engineer
ML EngineerContributions:31 reviews, 10 PRs, 88 comments in 3 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Nicholas contributed to the development and improvement of NeRF-based models within the repository. Their work included implementing alpha transparency training, refining point cloud generation, and optimizing pixel sampling techniques. They also made changes to data loading and processing, specifically regarding depth images and mask handling, and refined the TSDF mesh export functionality. These contributions demonstrate a focus on model training, rendering, and data handling within the NeRF framework.
pytorchphotogrammetrydeep-learningcomputer-vision3d-reconstruction
nepfaff/iiwa_setup
Oct 2023 - Mar 2025
iiwa real-world setup using Drake
Contributions:1 review, 8 PRs, 107 pushes in 1 year 5 months
pythonroboticsdrakeiiwamanipulation
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