Dr. Paul M. Torrens is a Program Director for the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) Program in the Directorate for Engineering at the U.S. National Science Foundation, and a Professor in Tandon's Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Center for Urban Science + Progress at New York University.
Paul's research focuses on modeling and simulation (especially the simulations that drive VR/AR) and location-aware technologies and Geographic Information Systems (especially next-generation systems for autonomy, edge computing, and spatial computing for mixed reality). Paul runs a large motion capture facility (the "Simspace") at NYU, where a lot of these technologies are put to work as engineered systems to support human-centered computing and urban computing. Currently, we are testing applications around shifting public behavior during the pandemic, behavioral simulation to make autonomous driving more responsive to pedestrians, and edge computing systems to help communities better understand their streetscapes.
Torrens was the recipient of a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation in 2007, and in 2008 George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
Publications
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Vyas, H. & Torrens, P.M. (2024). Vyas, H. & Torrens, P.M. (2024). "Tackling "leaky" facial and object recognition operations over federated learning". In Proceedings of the 2024 4th Interdisciplinary Conference on Electrics and Computer (INTCEC), Chicago, IL, USA, June 11-13, 2024, eds. N. Bizon, J. M. Lopez-Guede and B. Selami, pp. 1-5. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE.
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Kim, R. & Torrens, P.M. (2024). "Boundary SPH for robust particle-mesh interaction in three dimensions." Algorithms, 17(5): 218.
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Kim, R. & Torrens, P.M. (2024). "Building verisimilitude in VR with high-fidelity local action models: a demonstration supporting road-crossing experiments." Proceedings of the 38th ACM SIGSIM Conference on Principles of Advanced Discrete Simulation, June 24-26, 2024, Atlanta, GA, USA, eds. M. Loper and A. Pellegrini, pp. 119-130. New York, NY, USA: ACM.
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Torrens, P.M. (2024). "Ten traps for non-representational theory in human geography." Geographies, 4(2): 253-286.
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Torrens, P.M. & Kim, R. (2024). "Evoking embodiment in immersive geosimulation environments." Annals of GIS, 30(1): 35-66.
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Torrens, P.M. & Kim, R. (2024). "Using immersive virtual reality to study road-crossing sustainability in fleeting moments of space and time." Sustainability, 16(3): 1327.
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Chen, M.; Liu, X.; Claramunt, C.; Çöltekin, A.; Peng, P.; Lotfian, M.; Robinson, A.C.; Golay, F.; Joost, S.; Ingensand, I.; Batty, M.; Kwan, M-P.; Senousi, A.M.; Cheng, T.; Strobl, J.; Wilson, J.; Bandrova, T.; Konecny, M.; Torrens, P.M.; Zhang, F.; He, L.; Wang, J.; Ratti, C.; Kolditz, O.; Klippel, A.; Li, S.; Lin, H.; Lü, G. (2023). "Artificial intelligence and visual analytics in spatial sciences and cyberspace: research opportunities and challenges". Earth Science Reviews, 104438.
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Torrens, P.M. (2023). "Agent models of customer journeys on retail high streets". "Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination (JEIC), 18 (1): 87-128.
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Torrens, P.M. and Gu, S. (2023). "Inverse augmentation: transposing real people into pedestrian models". Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 100: 101923.
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Torrens, P.M. (2022). "Smart and sentient retail high streets". Smart Cities, 5(4): 1670-1720.
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Zhang, Y., B. Liang, B. Chen, P.M. Torrens, S. F. Atashzar, D. Lin, and Q. Sun (2022). "Force-aware interface via electromyography for natural VR/AR interaction". ACM Transactions on Graphics, 41 (6):268: 1-18.
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Torrens, P.M. (2022). Data science for pedestrian and high street retailing as a framework for advancing urban informatics to individual scales. Urban Informatics 1: 9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44212-022-00009-x.
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Chen, M.; Liu, X.; Claramunt, C.; Batty, M.; Kwan, M.; Senousi, A.M.; Cheng, T; Strobl, J.; Arzu, C.; Wilson, J.; Bandrova, T.; Konecny, M.; Torrens, P.M.; Li, H.; Wang, J.; Ratti, C.; Kolditz, O.; Klippel, A.; Li, S.; Lin, H.; Zhang, F.; Lü, G. (2022) "Geographic information science in the era of geospatial big data: a cyberspace perspective". The Innovation, 3(5): 100279.
- Torrens, P.M. (2022). "Agent models of customer journeys on retail high streets". "Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination (JEIC), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11403-022-00350-z.
- Torrens, P.M. & Gu, S. (2021) "Real-time experiential geosimulation in virtual reality with immersion-emission". In GeoSim '21: Proceedings of the 4th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on GeoSpatial Simulation. November 2, 2021, pp. 19-28. 10.1145/3486184.3491079.
- Prakash, B.A.; Torrens, P.M.; Wigginton, K.; Yin, J. (2021) "National Symposium on PRedicting Emergence of Virulent Entities by Novel Technologies (PREVENT)". NSF Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention (PIPP) Workshop Summary Report. Atlanta, GA: Georgia Tech. 52 pages. https://prevent-symposium.org/.
Research Centers, Labs, and Groups
NYU Tandon Future Labs
The NYU Tandon Future Labs are business incubators for a new generation.
Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP)
The Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) is an interdisciplinary research ...
