For Yumi Omori (NYUAD ’25), video games are a way to explore the world. While she enjoys reading, watching movies, and traveling to broaden her perspective, she believes games deserve the same recognition as meaningful ways to experience and understand the world.
Often seen as entertainment, distraction, or a personal hobby, games are more than that, Omori said. "What makes games especially interesting to me is their interactivity. Books allow us to imagine another world. Films allow us to observe another world. Travel allows us to physically enter another environment. Games allow us to act inside another reality."
It is her love of video games that inspired Omori to pursue a career in computer science.
Video games offer imaginative refuge through worlds where people can live many different lives and shape their own stories. "There can always be a reality that allows us to escape," Omori said. They can feel like lucid dreams, an escape from a harsh, unequal reality that often leaves little room for inner life. Through games, people can step into countless possibilities and become whoever they can imagine.
At NYU Abu Dhabi, while she majored in computer science during her bachelor's with two minors in math and psychology, she also took some courses in interactive media.
Omori believes interactive media helps create a platform, a medium for people to connect with different kinds of alternative realities. From a virtual reality course running cognitive science experiments on how embodying a digital self affects identity, to a parametric design course, using software to build architectural models and generative artworks, Omori learned and discovered a lot about herself.
The breadth of her undergraduate days at NYUAD reflected that interdisciplinary spirit. "I love that, after finishing a batch of experiments, I could drop by my roommate's film set to help arrange the scene. Then, I’d return to the art studio to carve my coins from clay. At night, I’d relax in a lounge with friends watching wildlife documentaries," she said.
Research at NYUAD
Working as a researcher at NYUAD, Omori is focused on self-supervised reinforcement learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that trains agents to make decisions that does not rely on a hand-designed external reward function.
"You try to train an agent that whenever it makes desirable actions, it will get the rewards,” she explained.
Omori had turned down offers from consulting firms and finance positions to get here, as her interest lay in research. After two years in this role, she is now preparing to apply for a PhD.
Appreciation of the NYUAD community
Omori recalls the sense of community among students during her undergraduate years. During finals week, students often filled the whiteboard outside the library with words of encouragement in their native languages. The last time Omori counted, there were 18 languages on a single whiteboard.
"I think it is an absolutely unique view that hardly exists in any other university," she said. "The dream and the picture of a shared world village, at least, partially, temporarily, exists on this campus."
She also observed an interesting characteristic common among NYUAD students. They resist being defined by a single culture or label, recognizing the complexity of each person’s identity. They welcome perspectives different from their own and explore customs beyond those they grew up with.
"On this campus, an ideal of equality was created for us… what NYUAD grants us is a privilege, and I am deeply grateful for this chance.”
Advice to juniors
In addition to being curious about the world, Omori hopes others will also stay curious about people, carrying forward a sense of passion, gratitude, and wonder, while embracing every opportunity for growth and connection that life offers.
