Honors and Awards
Chuck Hansen Receives the 2017 IEEE Visualization Career Award
Congratulations to Charles (Chuck) Hansen, who received the 2017 IEEE Visualization Career Award. Dr. Hansen is received the award for his contributions to large scale data visualization, including advances in parallel and volume rendering, novel interaction techniques, and techniques for exploiting hardware; for his leadership in the community as an educator, program chair, and editor; and for providing vision for the development and support of the field.Read the release from IEEE
Mike Kirby Honored Among Top Researchers at the University of Utah
Mike Kirby has been chosen as one of two top researchers in the College of Engineering as part of the CELEBRATE U: A Showcase of Extraordinary Faculty Achievements event hosted by the J. Willard Marriott Library and the Office of the Vice President for Research.
SCI Alum Thiago Ize to Receive Technical Oscar
Congratulations to SCI Institute Alumnus Thiago Ize for receiving a Technical Achievement Oscar for his work on ray tracing:To Marcos Fajardo for the creative vision and original implementation of the Arnold Renderer, and to Chris Kulla, Alan King, Thiago Ize and Clifford Stein for their highly optimized geometry engine and novel ray-tracing algorithms which unify the rendering of curves, surfaces, volumetrics and subsurface scattering as developed at Sony Pictures Imageworks and Solid Angle SL.
http://www.oscars.org/news/18-scientific-and-technical-achievements-be-honored-academy-awards-0
Miriah Meyer Receives Distinguished Alumni Award
Congratulations to Miriah Meyer, who receive this year's University of Utah Distinguished Alumni Award. To celebrate the founding of the University of Utah in 1850, the Alumni Association each year recognizes alumni and honorary alumni who have excelled professionally, served the local and national communities, and supported the university in its mission.A reception and dinner will be held Friday, March 3rd at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Tickets for the reception are available through the University of Utah Alumni Association.
NSF Graduate Fellowships Awarded to Two SCI Students
Congratulations to Danielle Pruss and Daria Anderson on receiving NSF Graduate Fellowships. Danielle is a researcher in the Vis Design Lab under Dr. Miriah Meyer, and Daria is working on issues with deep brain stimulation under Dr. Chris Butson.
Winner of the 2015 Teapot Rendering Competition
This image is not strictly photorealistic. Laura rendered out the image into two main layers, one for specular highlights and caustics, and one for diffuse lighting. She also has a mask for just the teapots, and one for the ground. Laura was able to split up the image and adjust the brightness of each part independently. Here she decided to include some diffuse reflection/refraction for the teapots, but mostly removed the diffuse lighting from the ground. This gave an extra glow to the teapots and also emphasized the caustics. 100,000 samples per pixel.
Miriah Meyer Receives Outstanding Teaching Award
Congratulations to Miriah Meyer who received the School of Computing Outstanding Teaching Award. High resolution photo courtesy of the School of Computing.
For more information and pictures from the graduation reception, visit http://www.cs.utah.edu/faculty-and-students-recognized-with-top-awards-at-graduation-reception/
Erin Linebarger Receives NSF Graduate Fellowship
Congratulations to Erin Linebarger on receiving an NSF Graduate Fellowship. Erin's current research focus is on uncertainty quantification and probability. The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science and engineering. The GRFP provides three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant achievements in science and engineering.
Nina McCurdy Receives NSF Graduate Fellowship
Congratulations to Nina McCurdy on receiving an NSF Graduate Fellowship. Nina's current research focus is on developing visualization tools for the humanities. The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science and engineering. The GRFP provides three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant achievements in science and engineering.
Strong Showing for SCI Alumni at Vis 2014
Congratulations to our former SCI Institute and SoC Colleague Claudio Silva, now at New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering, who was awarded the 2014 IEEE Visualization Technical Achievement Award at Vis 2014 in Paris. The award is in recognition of seminal advances in geometric computing for visualization and for contributions to the development of the VisTrails data exploration system.See: Phys.Org "NYU professor wins premier award in the data visualization field."
School of Computing Recognized Among 50 Most Innovative CS Departments in the U.S.
The University of Utah's School of Computing was recently recognized in Computer Science Degree HUB's list of The 50 Most Innovative Computer Science Departments in the U.S. The SCI Institute was also mentioned as a place where "students work side by side with distinguished scientists to come up with pioneering biomedical solutions."