Walt Disney Animation Studios | Burbank, CA | Jul 2015 - Present

Staff Software Engineer, Hyperion Renderer (May 2025 - Present) | Working on Disney Animation's custom, in-house physically based renderer. | Supervisors: Daniel Teece, Mackenzie Thompson

Senior Software Engineer, Hyperion Renderer (Jul 2018 - May 2025) | See above description. | Supervisors: Daniel Teece, Mackenzie Thompson, Rajesh Sharma

Software Engineer, Hyperion Renderer (Jul 2015 - Jul 2018) | See above description. | Supervisors: Brent Burley, Rajesh Sharma, Darren Robinson

Cornell University Program of Computer Graphics | Ithaca, NY | Aug 2013 - Jul 2015

Research Assistant | Conducting research into fast physically based rendering and accurate illumination models. | Supervisors: Donald P. Greenberg, Joseph T. Kider Jr.

Pixar Animation Studios | Emeryville, CA | Jun 2013 - Aug 2013

Research Group Intern | Prototyped subsurface scattering and fur rendering components of Pixar's interactive physically based rendering preview system. | Supervisors: Tony DeRose, Mark Meyer

University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences | Philadelphia, PA | Jan 2012 - May 2013

Physically Based Animation (Spring 2013) TA | Developed assignments, held office hours, graded assignments, etc. | Supervisor: Ladislav Kavan

GPU Programming (Fall 2012) TA | Developed curriculum and assignments, held office hours, graded assignments, etc. | Supervisor: Patrick Cozzi

Intro to Computer Graphics (Spring 2012) TA | Held office hours, graded assignments, etc. | Supervisor: Norm Badler

Dreamworks Animation | Glendale, CA | Jun 2012 - Aug 2012

Global Department Technical Director Intern | Contributed to tools and technologies used by other departments to produce animated films. | Supervisor: Jon Shih

Pixar Animation Studios | Emeryville, CA | Jun 2011 - Aug 2011

Pixar Undergraduate Program Intern | Completed weekly assignments in all technical director areas of Pixar’s production pipeline. | Supervisor: Fran Kalal

Zootopia 2 | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2025

Technology: Rendering | Staff Software Engineer

Moana 2 | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2024

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Wish | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2023

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Strange World | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2022

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Zootopia+ | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2022

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Baymax! | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Jun 2022

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Encanto | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2021

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Raya and the Last Dragon | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Mar 2021

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Frozen 2 | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2019

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Ralph Breaks the Internet | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2018

Technology: Rendering | Senior Software Engineer

Olaf's Frozen Adventure | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2017

Special Technology Development | Software Engineer

Moana | Walt Disney Animation Studios | Nov 2016

Technology: Rendering | Software Engineer

Path Guiding Surfaces and Volumes in Disney's Hyperion Renderer: A Case Study | SIGGRAPH 2025 Course | Aug 2025

ACM SIGGRAPH 2025 Course Notes for "Path Guiding in Production and Recent Advancements", Pages 30-66. ACM SIGGRAPH 2025 Courses, Aug 2025. Article No. 14. DOI: 10.1145/3721241.3733994

Authors: Lea Reichardt, Brian Green, Yining Karl Li, and Marco Manzi

A Texture Streaming Pipeline for Real-Time GPU Ray Tracing | SIGGRAPH 2025 Talk | Aug 2025

ACM SIGGRAPH 2025 Talks, Aug 2025. Article No. 12. DOI: 10.1145/3721239.3734098

Authors: Mark Lee, Nathan Zeichner, and Yining Karl Li

Cache Points For Production-Scale Occlusion-Aware Many-Lights Sampling And Volumetric Scattering | DigiPro 2024 | Jul 2024

DigiPro '24: Proceedings of the Digital Production Symposium 2024, Jul 2024. Article No. 6. DOI: 10.1145/3665320.3670993

Authors: Yining Karl Li, Charlotte Zhu, Gregory Nichols, Peter Kutz, Wei-Feng Wayne Huang, David Adler, Brent Burley, and Daniel Teece

Progressive Null-tracking for Volumetric Rendering | SIGGRAPH 2023 | Aug 2023

SIGGRAPH '23: ACM SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Proceedings, Aug 2023. Article No. 31. DOI: 10.1145/3588432.3591557

Authors: Zackary Misso, Yining Karl Li, Brent Burley, Daniel Teece, and Wojciech Jarosz

“Encanto” - Let’s Talk About Bruno’s Visions | SIGGRAPH 2022 Talk | Aug 2022

ACM SIGGRAPH 2022 Talks, Aug 2022. Article No. 8. DOI: 10.1145/3532836.3536269

Authors: Corey Butler, Brent Burley, Wei-Feng Wayne Huang, Yining Karl Li, and Benjamin Huang

Unbiased Emission and Scattering Importance Sampling For Heterogeneous Volumes | SIGGRAPH 2021 Talk | Aug 2021

ACM SIGGRAPH 2021 Talks, Aug 2021. Article No. 3. DOI: 10.1145/3450623.3464644

Authors: Wei-Feng Wayne Huang, Peter Kutz, Yining Karl Li, and Matt Jen-Yuan Chiang

Taming the Shadow Terminator | SIGGRAPH 2019 Talk | Jul 2019

ACM SIGGRAPH 2019 Talks, Jul 2019. Article No. 71. DOI: 10.1145/3306307.3328172

Authors: Matt Jen-Yuan Chiang, Yining Karl Li, and Brent Burley

The Design and Evolution of Disney's Hyperion Renderer | ACM Transactions on Graphics | Aug 2018

ACM Transactions on Graphics, Volume 37 Issue 3, Aug 2018. Article No. 33. DOI: 10.1145/3182159

Authors: Brent Burley, David Adler, Matt Jen-Yuan Chiang, Hank Driskill, Ralf Habel, Patrick Kelly, Peter Kutz, Yining Karl Li, and Daniel Teece

Spectral and Decomposition Tracking for Rendering Heterogeneous Volumes | SIGGRAPH 2017 | Jul 2017

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH 2017), Volume 36 Issue 4, Jul 2017. Article No. 111. DOI: 10.1145/3072959.3073665

Authors: Peter Kutz, Ralf Habel, Yining Karl Li, and Jan Novák

Recent Advances in Disney's Hyperion Renderer | SIGGRAPH 2017 Course | Jul 2017

ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 Course Notes for "Path Tracing in Production, Part 1", Pages 26-34. ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 Courses, Aug 2017. Article No. 13. DOI: 10.1145/3084873.3084904

Authors: Brent Burley, David Adler, Matt Jen-Yuan Chiang, Ralf Habel, Patrick Kelly, Peter Kutz, Yining Karl Li, and Daniel Teece (Secondary authors presented in alphabetical order by last name)

A Framework for the Experimental Comparison of Solar and Skydome Illumination | SIGGRAPH Asia 2014 | Nov/Dec 2014

ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2014), Volume 33 Issue 6, Nov 2014. Article No. 180. DOI: 10.1145/2661229.2661259

Authors: Joseph T. Kider Jr., Daniel T. Knowlton, Jeremy Newlin, Yining Karl Li, and Donald P. Greenberg

Program Committees:

SIGGRAPH 2026 General Submissions

SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 Posters and Technical Communications

DigiPro 2025

SIGGRAPH 2025 General Submissions

SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 Posters and Technical Communications

DigiPro 2024

SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 Posters and Technical Communications

Reviewer For:

SIGGRAPH 2026 Technical Papers

Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques (JCGT) 2025

Eurographics 2024 Technical Papers

Eurographics 2023 Short Papers

Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques (JCGT) 2020

Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques (JCGT) 2019

SIGGRAPH Asia 2013 Courses

Pixar's RenderMan "First Contact" Art Challenge | Honorable Mention | Aug 2025 - Nov 2025

Pixar's RenderMan "Lost Things" Art Challenge | Honorable Mention | Aug 2023 - Nov 2023

Pixar's RenderMan "NASA Exploration" Art Challenge | Honorable Mention | Aug 2022 - Nov 2022

Pixar's RenderMan "The Iconoclasts" Art Challenge | Honorable Mention | Aug 2021 - Nov 2021

Pixar's RenderMan "Magic Shop" Art Challenge | Third Place| Sep 2020 - Nov 2020

Pixar's RenderMan "Shipshape" Art Challenge | First Place | Apr 2020 - Jun 2020

Pixar's RenderMan "Woodville" Art Challenge | Honorable Mention | Aug 2019 - Nov 2019

Cornell University | Ithaca, NY | Sep 2013 - Fall 2015 (Incomplete)

Program of Computer Graphics Master of Science in Computer Graphics, advisor: Donald P. Greenberg (Incomplete)

University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA | Sep 2009 - May 2013

Wharton School of Business Bachelor of Science in Economics, concentration in Marketing (Completed May 2013)