Vasco Xu

I am a PhD student at the University of Chicago advised by Prof. Hank Hoffmann and Prof. Karan Ahuja. Previously, I earned a B.Phil in Computer Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

My research interests lie at the intersection of embedded systems, machine learning, and HCI. I'm interested in developing novel systems to better understand, communicate and interact with the world around us.

I grew up in Sintra, a beautiful town in Lisbon (Portugal).

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Selected Publications

FlowAvatar: Real-Time Full-Body Avatars from Sparse Egocentric Inputs on Consumer XR Devices

Chenfeng Gao, Taeyoung Yeon, Sungheon Park, Vasco Xu, Anish Prabhu, Mar Gonzalez-Franco, Karan Ahuja

ISMAR '26

ArmPoser: Real-Time, Calibration-Free Arm Pose Estimation from Smartwatch IMU

Bishnu Dev, Vasco Xu, Xi-Aan Loh, Chenfeng Gao, Henry Hoffmann, Karan Ahuja

SUI '26

MARIO: Motion-Augmented Real-Time Multi-Sensor Inertial Odometry

Yiquan Li, Taeyoung Yeon, Chenfeng Gao, Vasco Xu, Xuanyou Liu, Karan Ahuja

CVPR '26 Findings

[ paper ]

SurfaceXR: Fusing Smartwatch IMUs and Egocentric Hand Pose for Seamless Surface Interactions

Vasco Xu, Brian Chen, Eric J Gonzalez, Andrea Colaço, Henry Hoffmann, Mar Gonzalez-Franco, Karan Ahuja

IEEE VR '26 (TVCG Special Issue)

[ paper ] [ video ]

WatchHAR: Real-time On-device Human Activity Recognition System for Smartwatches

Taeyoung Yeon, Vasco Xu, Henry Hoffmann, Karan Ahuja

ICMI '25

[ paper ] [ video ] [ code ]

MobilePoser: Real-Time Full-Body Pose Estimation and 3D Human Translation from IMUs in Mobile Consumer Devices

Vasco Xu, Chenfeng Gao, Henry Hoffmann, Karan Ahuja

UIST '24

[ paper ] [ video ] [ code ]