Illuminations using LightBenders

Hamed Alimohammadzadeh is a Computer Science Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern California (USC), advised by Prof. Shahram Ghandeharizadeh. His research sits at the intersection of multimedia, computer graphics, robotics, human-computer interaction (HCI), and novel display technologies, centered on a singular vision: Flying Light Specks (FLS), custom miniature drone swarms reimagined as a medium for 3D graphics and interactive spatial computing. Hamed engineers the full stack of these novel displays, including decentralized localization algorithms (SwarMer, Swarical, Swarzure) and custom illumination/authoring pipelines with the embedded hardware systems that bring them to life (LightBenders). His research has been published and presented at multimedia and graphics venues, including ACM Multimedia and SIGGRAPH, most recently as a 2nd-place winner in the SIGGRAPH 2026 Student Research Competition for the "Indoor Drone Visual Effects Using LightBenders" poster paper. Expected to complete his Ph.D. in late 2026, Hamed is transitioning to the professional technology market, seeking to bring spatial-display research to industry.