About

Dr. Robert LiKamWa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, where he directs the Experiential Pixels (EXP) Lab. His research spans real-time systems for XR, including mobile-to-cloud streaming pipelines, perceptual computing, spatial interaction frameworks, and AI-assisted content tools.

Dr. LiKamWa's research has been published in venues including ACM MobiSys, IEEE VR, ACM UIST, ACM ASPLOS, and the Proceedings of the IEEE. He is an inventor on eight U.S. patents in image sensing, haptics, and immersive audio/visual systems.

Before joining Rice, Dr. LiKamWa was a faculty member at Arizona State University, jointly appointed in The School of Arts, Media and Engineering and The School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. He earned his Ph.D., M.S., and B.S.E.E. from Rice University, where he was advised by Prof. Lin Zhong.

Most Chinese descendants have single character surnames, such as 王(Wang), 黄(Huang), or 唐(Tang). In fact, if not for my Mauritian lineage, my surname would be 李(Li). But instead, I have a unique last name which is only held by descendants of my great-grandfather.

LiKamWa is a rough European transcription of my great-grandfather's full name, which is 李金華(li3 jin1 hua4 in Mandarin pinyin). This was taken down as his surname when he emigrated from Southern China to the African island Mauritius.

I am proud of my name and I am proud of my heritage. I prefer to have my last name spelled "LiKamWa" with no spaces, but capitalization on the syllables.

Wikipedia has more info on Sino-Mauritian culture and identity.