A graduate of Penn Engineering’s Digital Media Design (DMD) program, Kaikai Wang (ENG’11) has worked for the past 15 years as a software engineer at Microsoft, Google and Meta. He currently leads the trusted computing effort at Meta Ads, with previous work on privacy-preserving machine learning systems, live streaming and virtual reality.
In this Q&A, Wang reflects on his formative experiences in computer graphics at Penn Engineering, the key mentor who shaped his path, and his most memorable experience at Penn.
Tell us about your time at Penn Engineering as a student.
My time at Penn Engineering was a transformative experience that laid the foundation for my career in computer graphics. I was a student in the Digital Media Design (DMD) program from 2009 to 2011, where I was able to deeply immerse myself in the world of computer graphics techniques and optimizations. The curriculum was incredibly engaging, allowing me to explore everything from the fundamentals of machine learning to the complex challenges of physically based animation, where I developed a photorealistic water simulator. This blend of theoretical knowledge and practical application gave me a significant head start when I joined Microsoft and began working on visual effects in Windows that are still used by billions of people today.
