Jay Scheib

MIT Music & Theater Arts
Class of 1949 Professor
Section Head for Music & Theater Arts

Jay Scheib is internationally known for genre-defying works of daring physicality and the integration of new (and used) technologies in live performance. Scheib’s current productions include the interactive VR installation Sei SIegfried with the Bayreuth Festival, Germany and the West End musical Bat Out of Hell (after the album by Jim Steinman) which played at the London Coliseum/English National Opera, New York City Center, and the Ed Mirvish Theater in Toronto. Other projects include a new opera based on Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona, which was produced by Beth Morrison Projects and premiered at National Sawdust in New York followed by performances at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and in 2017 with LA Opera at RedCat. Scheib’s recent mashup of Heiner Goebbels’ Surrogate Cities with Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung played to rave reviews at the Wuppertal Opera House in Germany.

Baimei Yu

Director, Screenwriter, and Producer
Best known for “Ping Pong: The Triumph”, “My People, My Homeland”, “Looking Up”, “Devil and Angel”, and “The Breakup Guru”.

Yu Baimei is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, and producer, best known for “Ping Pong: The Triumph”, “My People, My Homeland”, “Looking Up”, “Devil and Angel”, and “The Breakup Guru”.

In 2014, Yu Baimei wrote and directed the film “The Breakup Guru”. In 2015, he wrote and directed the film “Devil and Angel”. In 2017, the film “Wolf Warriors Ⅱ” presented by him premiered. In 2019, he wrote and directed the film “Looking Up”. In 2020, he co-wrote and co-directed the film “My People, My Homeland”. In 2021, he co-wrote the film “My Country, My Parents”. In 2022, he wrote and directed the film “Ping Pong: The Triumph”.

Yu Baimei’s other works of film as screenwriter since 2000 include “Potatoes’ Diary”, “A Family in the Northeast”, “Xian Ren Ma Da Jie”, “Xi’an Hu Jia”, “Fang Qian Wu Hou”, “Invincible Sanjiaomao”, “Dinner Party”, “Yan’an Ai Qing”, “Qi Pa Yi Jia Qin”, etc.

Alvin Wang Graylin

HTC, Global VP
OUR NEXT REALITY, Bestselling Author
Virtual World Society, Chairman

Alvin Wang Graylin is a recognized leader, author, investor, and technology pioneer with over three decades of experience driving innovation in AI, XR, and semiconductors. He currently serves as Global VP of Corporate Development at HTC, following a distinguished tenure as China President from 2016 to 2023. Graylin also holds leadership roles as Chairman of the Virtual World Society, Vice-Chair of the Industry of VR Alliance, and President of the Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance. His latest book, Our Next Reality, published by Hachette Book Group, examines how AI and XR convergence will reshape society.

Paige Bailey 

Google Deepmind, AI Developer Relations Engineering Lead

Paige Bailey is the AI Developer Relations engineering lead at Google DeepMind. Prior to returning to Google DeepMind, Paige worked on projects like GitHub Codespaces, VS Code, and Copilot at GitHub. As a former applied machine learning engineer (in Azure Research, Chevron, and on NASA projects), Paige can’t imagine a more exciting charter than accelerating creative work and developer productivity with AI.

Juan Diego Villegas

Jaguar Bite, Founding Partner
Fidelio Films, Managing Partner
MIT EMBA

As a dynamic entrepreneur and global business leader, Juan Diego thrives at the intersection of strategy, creativity, and innovation. With over a decade of experience scaling ventures across media and entertainment, while investing in the hospitality industry, he has contributed to building businesses that deliver impactful results.

The entertainment companies he co-founded have grown from ambitious startups to industry leaders in just seven years, creating thousands of jobs and fostering partnerships with giants like Netflix, Amazon, Warner, and Apple TV+. His entrepreneurial vision extends to a restaurant group investment that has grown into six distinct concepts with near 8-figure revenue in just five years, demonstrating his ability to identify high-potential opportunities across diverse sectors.

Chu Libin

Director, Producer
Council Member of the China Cinema Editors Association

With nearly 30 years of experience in film and television production and education, Libin has taught courses on photography, digital post-production, and film production at multiple universities. Throughout his career, he has directed, filmed, and produced over a hundred commercials, promotional videos, and a diverse range of microfilms, documentaries, and digital films. In recent years, his work has primarily focused on film and television creation, talent development, and academic exchange. Libin has also played a key role as a leader, planner, and judge at major industry events, including the Beijing International Film Festival, the China Science Fiction Conference, the Cross-Strait Youth Microfilm Competition, the China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, the Digital China Summit, and the China Virtual Reality Conference.

Daniel Pillis

Emerson College, Assistant Professor in Virtual Production
MIT, Research Affiliate

Daniel Pillis is an interdisciplinary researcher and artist who specializes in applications of artificial intelligence applied to virtual production, performance capture, mixed reality, and interactive computer graphics. Currently, Pillis’s research is focused on creating novel interfaces that enhance memory visualization. At Emerson, he leads research at the Emerging Media Lab, conducting creative research that explores the impact of simulations on the nature of the human experience. Pillis holds an MS in Tangible Media from the MIT Media Lab and an MFA in immersive media from Carnegie Mellon University. He was previously a student of Dr. Ivan Sutherland, a preeminent figure in computer graphics and godfather of virtual reality, as well as Dr. Hiroshi Ishii, a founding figure in human-computer interaction. He held previous posts as a research assistant at the CMU Robotics Institute and as a Research Assistant Professor of Immersive Environments.

Anna Borou Yu (Moderator)

2025 MIT AI Film Hack, Cochair
MIT Theater Arts, Collaborative Artist
MYStudio, Cofounder

Anna Borou Yu is an interdisciplinary researcher, new media artist and dancer. She is the Cofounder and Creative Director of MYStudio, collaborative artist at MIT Theater Arts, pursuing a PhD in Media Arts and Technology with Emphasis in Cognitive Science at UC Santa Barbara. She has worked as Fellow and Project Lead at Harvard FAS CAMLab, teaching at Tsinghua University, China Academy of Art and Central Academy of Fine Art. She served as XR Track Member at NEW INC, Ambassador of Arte Laguna Prize, Judge of 2024 MIT AI Filmmaking Hackathon, Judge of 2024 MIT Reality Hack, Reviewer of 2024 IEEE AIART Workshop, selected as AACYF Top 30 under 30 in 2023. Her artworks and research have been featured worldwide at Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica, Eurographics, ACM Siggraph Asia, ACM JOCCH, Arte Laguna Prize, Lumen Prize, Chengdu Biennale, etc.

Rus Gant

Research Affiliate, MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology

Rus Gant is a well-regarded international multi-technology artist, researcher and visual futurist. He is currently an XR+AI Researcher in the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was on the Research staff at Harvard University for 12 years in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, where he ran the Visualization Research Laboratory and the Virtual Harvard Project, he was recently a Research Fellow at MIT at the Center for Media Studies and for 10 years was adjunct faculty at Tokyo’s Showa Women’s University’s Institute for Language and Culture. He is a past fellow at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, was director of the Visualization Group of MIT’s Project Athena and a Fellow at the Center for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University

Nix Liu Xin

Media artist, Director, Computational Designer
Onceness, Founder
2023 MIT AI Film Hack, Best Film Winner
Harvard GSD Alumni

Nix Liu Xin is a media artist, director, computational designer, and Harvard graduate, as well as the founder of Onceness, an experiential AI company dedicated to enabling everyone to create and share memories and imagination through intelligent world-making and 4D interactive media. Nix has collaborated with renowned brands and celebrities such as Burberry, Bosie, Dodge Challenger, Mercedes-Benz, as well as Re-TROS, Nini, Li Yuchun, and Miss Grit. His accolades include being named to the AACYF 30 Under 30, receiving the Harvard Design Studies Domain Award, and winning the CGarchitect 3D Awards and MIT AI Film Hack Award for Best Picture. Nix is also the co-founder and president of both the HarvardXR Conference and the Creative.Tech Community.

Kavan the kid

AI Filmmaker
Director
Co-Founder of Phantom X

Kavan the Kid, born Kavan Cardoza, is a multifaceted artist based in Culver City, California. He is renowned for his work as a film director, photographer, and AI filmmaker, and Co-Founder of Phantom X

Yetong Xin

Digital Artist
2024 MIT AI Filmmaking Hackathon, 3D Winner
Harvard GSD, Graduate Student

Yetong Xin is a digital artist specializing in 3D, AI, XR technologies, and interactive media.
As a contributor at Refik Anadol Studio and Harvard CAM Lab, her work spans animation, immersive exhibitions, architectural projections, and interactive installations. Through her creations, she explores the intersection of the virtual and real, challenging perceptions of identity, space, and reality. Her art has been exhibited across Asia, Europe, and North America, showcasing in over six countries worldwide. She has received numerous accolades, including recognition at NeurIPS and CHI, as well as the IDA Award, MUSE Design Award, and A+D Museum Design Award. Her work continues to redefine the boundaries of digital art and human-machine collaboration.

Kangfu Mei

Research Scientist, Google AI Innovation & Research

Kangfu is a research scientist at Google AI Innovation & Research (AIR). He got my Ph.D. degree (2021/09 – 2025/01) at Johns Hopkins University , advised by Prof. Vishal Patel , where he worked on compute vision and computational photography. He got his M.Phil degree (2019 – 2021) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, advised by Prof. Rui Huang.

More Judges might be announced. Pleases contact us (mitaifilmhack@gmail.com) with your bio and works if you are interested in becoming a Judge.