Naureen Mahmood is the Director of Research Engineering at Epic Games and co-founder of Meshcapade, a Tübingen-based company developing 3D human embodiment and behavior models for AI agents, virtual beings, and humanoid robots. Previously, she was CEO of Meshcapade and began her career as the first research engineer at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen, where she contributed to foundational work on 3D human shape, motion modeling, and pose estimation. She is a co-author of the influential SMPL body model and MoSh motion-capture technology, both recognized with major awards for their lasting impact on computer vision, graphics, and AI. Mahmood is relevant to Cyber Valley as an example of research-to-venture transfer in the region: her work connects Tübingen’s foundational AI and robotics research with applications in digital humans, embodied AI, gaming, healthcare, and human–robot interaction.
