1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
I am a professor of Computer Science and Applied & Computational Mathematics at Caltech since 1995
2. What was your first job?
Massage Therapist
3. Where did you complete your formal education?
Berlin, MIT, Princeton
4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?
I saw the movie Tron and just had to find out how those effects were done.
5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?
My first course at SIGGRAPH in 1984 on “Mathematics for computer graphics.” Courses have always been very important for me. First as a participant and in later years as a teacher.
6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.
I work in Digital Geometry Processing, that is the development of mathematical tools and algorithms to allow us to manipulate geometry with the same ease with which we manipulate other media such as sound and video.
7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?
Albert Hofmann for being a scientist who changed the world.
8. What is something most people don’t know about you?
That I used to be a massage therapist before I became a computer graphics nerd.
9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?
Pat Hanrahan. He taught me to focus on the quality and not quantity of my scientific work.
10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?
It’s really been the whole community and their enthusiasm and diversity that inspire me most about ACM SIGGRAPH and what it stands for.
11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?
Receiving the Computer Graphics Achievement award in 2003.