Nicole Meng

About

I am a second-year PhD candidate at Tufts University, advised by Prof. Yingjie Lao. Prior to that, I received an M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Connecticut, and earned a triple degree from Brandeis University, majoring in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, and Economics.

My research spans generative and foundational AI systems across vision and language. I work on 3D generative vision systems, diffusion-based models, large language models, and code generation models, with an emphasis on adversarial behavior, robustness, and the reliable deployment of large-scale AI systems. I am currently exploring world models and agentic security systems.

News

• 2026 06 07I am organizing the 1st SPAR-3D Workshop at CVPR'26, CFP active.
• 2026 03 06I am invited as a keynote speaker at the SAFE Workshop at WACV 2026. See you in Tucson. 🎤
• 2025 11 17I passed my PhD thesis proposal: "Towards Secure and Trustworthy Generative 3D Vision Reconstruction".
• 2025 06 14I presented our IL2-NeRF poster at CVPR 2025 in Nashville, TN.

Selected Publications

Advancing Adversarial Robustness in GNeRFs: The IL2-NeRF Attack

Nicole Meng, Caleb Manicke, Ronak Sahu, Caiwen Ding, Yingjie Lao

CVPR 2025

Experiences

Academia

PhD Researcher
Tufts University · Present
Computer Vision, ML Security, Robust AI
Advisor: Prof. Yingjie Lao

Graduate Researcher
University of Connecticut · 2023–2024
ML Security, NLP, Computer Vision
Advisor: Prof. Caiwen Ding

Undergraduate Researcher
Brandeis University · 2021–2023
ML Security, Deep Learning, Computer Vision
Advisor: Prof. Pengyu Hong

Academic Services

Misc

• 🎾 I play tennis @ Mouratoglou Tennis Center Boston, coached by Massimo Boscatto.
• ⛷️ I ski in the Northeast. 2026 Destinations: Killington VT · Stratton VT
• 🧬 Health and performance focused — nutrition and metabolic optimization.
• ✈️ Aircraft — especially the F-16 and B-2.
• 🤝 Grateful for the friends who have made my life exponentially better: DV, AD, LG, LE, DS, OH