Mengdi Wang

王梦迪 | Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

PhysAI Lab · University of British Columbia

I am a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Peter Yichen Chen’s PhysAI Lab at the University of British Columbia. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, advised by Prof. Bo Zhu, and my B.S. from Peking University, where I worked with Prof. Baoquan Chen.

I see physical simulation as a two-way interface between intelligent systems and the real world. AI can enable simulations beyond the reach of hand-designed models and heuristics; physics, in turn, provides testable principles for quantifying error, verifying behavior, and supporting reliable, human-centered decision-making. My work builds this interface through multiscale representations, interface and transport algorithms, and adaptive GPU solvers, while extending it with learning and feedback loops that connect perception, simulation, generation, and control.

I am actively seeking tenure-track faculty positions starting in Fall 2027.

Open-Source Projects

Publications

WorldAgent: Verification-Guided Agentic Physical World Construction

Caoliwen Wang^* , Mengdi Wang^*^† , Yige Chen^* , Zejia Wu , Bowen Huang , Siyuan Chen , Guanxiong Chen , Lifu Wei , Heng Zhang , Qinghai Zhang , Yin Yang , Guandao Yang , Shiying Xiong , Peng Wang , Chenfanfu Jiang , and Peter Yichen Chen

arXiv preprint, 2026

^* Co-first authors. ^† Corresponding author.

Website Bib

@article{wang2026worldagent,
  title = {WorldAgent: Verification-Guided Agentic Physical World Construction},
  author = {Wang, Caoliwen and Wang, Mengdi and Chen, Yige and Wu, Zejia and Huang, Bowen and Chen, Siyuan and Chen, Guanxiong and Wei, Lifu and Zhang, Heng and Zhang, Qinghai and Yang, Yin and Yang, Guandao and Xiong, Shiying and Wang, Peng and Jiang, Chenfanfu and Chen, Peter Yichen},
  equal_contrib = {Wang, Caoliwen and Wang, Mengdi and Chen, Yige},
  journal = {arXiv preprint},
  year = {2026},
}

WorldContact: A Contact-Centric World Model for Scalable Robot Learning

Caoliwen Wang^* , Mengdi Wang^*^† , Heng Zhang , Shixun Huang , Siyuan Chen , Chao Liu , Anpei Chen , Zhendong Wang , Peter Yichen Chen^† , and Huamin Wang

arXiv preprint, 2026

^* Co-first authors. ^† Corresponding authors.

Website PDF Bib

@article{wang2026worldcontact,
  title = {WorldContact: A Contact-Centric World Model for Scalable Robot Learning},
  author = {Wang, Caoliwen and Wang, Mengdi and Zhang, Heng and Huang, Shixun and Chen, Siyuan and Liu, Chao and Chen, Anpei and Wang, Zhendong and Chen, Peter Yichen and Wang, Huamin},
  equal_contrib = {Wang, Caoliwen and Wang, Mengdi},
  journal = {arXiv preprint},
  year = {2026},
}

WorldParticle: Unified World Simulation of Lagrangian Particle Dynamics via Transformer

Caoliwen Wang^* , Minghao Guo^* , Siyuan Chen^* , Heng Zhang , Mengdi Wang , Xingyu Ni , Hanson Sun , Kunyi Wang , Zherong Pan , Kui Wu , Lingjie Liu , Yin Yang , Chenfanfu Jiang , Taku Komura , Wojciech Matusik , and Peter Yichen Chen

SIGGRAPH Asia 2026, 2026

^* Co-first authors.

Website PDF Bib

@article{wang2026worldparticle,
  title = {WorldParticle: Unified World Simulation of Lagrangian Particle Dynamics via Transformer},
  author = {Wang, Caoliwen and Guo, Minghao and Chen, Siyuan and Zhang, Heng and Wang, Mengdi and Ni, Xingyu and Sun, Hanson and Wang, Kunyi and Pan, Zherong and Wu, Kui and Liu, Lingjie and Yang, Yin and Jiang, Chenfanfu and Komura, Taku and Matusik, Wojciech and Chen, Peter Yichen},
  equal_contrib = {Wang, Caoliwen and Guo, Minghao and Chen, Siyuan},
  journal = {SIGGRAPH Asia 2026},
  year = {2026},
}

Matrix-Free Multigrid with Algebraically Consistent Coarsening on Adaptive Octrees

Mengdi Wang , Yuchen Sun , and Bo Zhu

arXiv preprint, 2026

Website PDF Bib

@article{wang2026multigrid,
  title = {Matrix-Free Multigrid with Algebraically Consistent Coarsening on Adaptive Octrees},
  author = {Wang, Mengdi and Sun, Yuchen and Zhu, Bo},
  journal = {arXiv preprint},
  year = {2026},
}

Cirrus: Adaptive Hybrid Particle-Grid Flow Maps on GPU

Mengdi Wang , Fan Feng , Junlin Li , and Bo Zhu

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 2025

Website PDF Code Bib

@article{wang2025cirrus,
  title = {Cirrus: Adaptive Hybrid Particle-Grid Flow Maps on GPU},
  author = {Wang, Mengdi and Feng, Fan and Li, Junlin and Zhu, Bo},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)},
  volume = {44},
  number = {4},
  pages = {1--17},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {ACM New York, NY, USA},
}

Real-Time Knit Deformation and Rendering

Tao Huang^* , Haoyang Shi , Mengdi Wang^* , Yuxing Qiu , Yin Yang , and Kui Wu

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 2025

^* Co-first authors.

Website PDF Bib

@article{huang2025real,
  title = {Real-Time Knit Deformation and Rendering},
  author = {Huang, Tao and Shi, Haoyang and Wang, Mengdi and Qiu, Yuxing and Yang, Yin and Wu, Kui},
  equal_contrib = {Huang, Tao and Wang, Mengdi},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)},
  volume = {44},
  number = {4},
  pages = {1--12},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {ACM New York, NY, USA},
}

An interface tracking method with triangle edge cuts

Mengdi Wang , Matthew Cong , and Bo Zhu

Journal of Computational Physics, 2025

Website PDF Bib

@article{wang2025interface,
  title = {An interface tracking method with triangle edge cuts},
  author = {Wang, Mengdi and Cong, Matthew and Zhu, Bo},
  journal = {Journal of Computational Physics},
  volume = {520},
  pages = {113504},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
}

Hydrophobic and hydrophilic solid-fluid interaction

Jinyuan Liu , Mengdi Wang , Fan Feng , Annie Tang , Qiqin Le , and Bo Zhu

ACM Transactions on Graphics, 2022

Website Bib

@article{liu2022hydrophobic,
  title = {Hydrophobic and hydrophilic solid-fluid interaction},
  author = {Liu, Jinyuan and Wang, Mengdi and Feng, Fan and Tang, Annie and Le, Qiqin and Zhu, Bo},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics},
  volume = {41},
  number = {6},
  year = {2022},
}

A Clebsch method for free-surface vortical flow simulation

Shiying Xiong , Zhecheng Wang , Mengdi Wang , and Bo Zhu

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 2022

Website PDF Bib

@article{xiong2022clebsch,
  title = {A Clebsch method for free-surface vortical flow simulation},
  author = {Xiong, Shiying and Wang, Zhecheng and Wang, Mengdi and Zhu, Bo},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)},
  volume = {41},
  number = {4},
  pages = {1--13},
  year = {2022},
  publisher = {ACM New York, NY, USA},
}

A moving Eulerian-Lagrangian particle method for thin film and foam simulation

Yitong Deng , Mengdi Wang , Xiangxin Kong , Shiying Xiong , Zangyueyang Xian , and Bo Zhu

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 2022

Website PDF Code Bib

@article{deng2022moving,
  title = {A moving Eulerian-Lagrangian particle method for thin film and foam simulation},
  author = {Deng, Yitong and Wang, Mengdi and Kong, Xiangxin and Xiong, Shiying and Xian, Zangyueyang and Zhu, Bo},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)},
  volume = {41},
  number = {4},
  pages = {1--17},
  year = {2022},
  publisher = {ACM New York, NY, USA},
}

Thin-film smoothed particle hydrodynamics fluid

Mengdi Wang , Yitong Deng , Xiangxin Kong , Aditya H Prasad , Shiying Xiong , and Bo Zhu

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), 2021

Website PDF Code Bib

@article{wang2021thin,
  title = {Thin-film smoothed particle hydrodynamics fluid},
  author = {Wang, Mengdi and Deng, Yitong and Kong, Xiangxin and Prasad, Aditya H and Xiong, Shiying and Zhu, Bo},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG)},
  volume = {40},
  number = {4},
  pages = {1--16},
  year = {2021},
  publisher = {ACM New York, NY, USA},
}

Visual data analysis and simulation prediction for COVID-19

Baoquan Chen , Mingyi Shi , Xingyu Ni , Liangwang Ruan , Hongda Jiang , Heyuan Yao , Mengdi Wang , Zhenhua Song , Qiang Zhou , and Tong Ge

arXiv preprint, 2020

Website Bib

@article{chen2020visual,
  title = {Visual data analysis and simulation prediction for COVID-19},
  author = {Chen, Baoquan and Shi, Mingyi and Ni, Xingyu and Ruan, Liangwang and Jiang, Hongda and Yao, Heyuan and Wang, Mengdi and Song, Zhenhua and Zhou, Qiang and Ge, Tong},
  journal = {arXiv preprint},
  year = {2020},
}