News

Mashhuda Glencross has been named as the Volunteer Development Committee Chair.  Dr Glencross research interests are in computer graphics, human computer interaction and the application of these areas to real industry problems.  She is the director for teaching and learning in the school of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Queensland where she leads Graphics and Visualisation research with a focus on its application to safety in severe weather events. With a background in industry focused research,  her work in computer graphics has been supported through industry contracts and research council funding. Dr. Glencross’s work has had commercial impacts across computer games, visual effects, displays, mobile phones and image-based capture technologies.

As chair of the Volunteer Development Committee at ACM SIGGRAPH, she is excited to bring her previous experience in the organization to help develop our future leaders. ACM SIGGRAPH is a global organization that is underpinned by its strong volunteer base, without whom our year long activities and conferences would not be possible. Her vision is to develop mentorship schemes to move this community of volunteers to key contributors of technical, art, and interactive techniques, content to both our annual conferences. Dr. Mashhuda Glencross said, “I’m keen to work with the Professional and Student Chapters Committee and the Student Volunteers program to help develop strong volunteer development and mentorship programs that pair up key volunteers in our organization with academic and/or practitioner volunteers.”  Her objective is for our student volunteers, chapter volunteers and conference volunteers that take part in our conferences to become lifelong contributors to year long events, become our future content contributors and our future leaders. She said, “I’m seeking support from our community of experts internationally and from members of SIGGRAPH Academy to take part in these development programs to help make this happen.”

If you are interested in participating in the program, please contact Mashhuda at volunteer-development-chair@siggraph.org.

The Outstanding Service Award is presented annually to recognize a career of outstanding service to ACM SIGGRAPH by a volunteer. It recognizes an individual who has given extraordinary service to ACM SIGGRAPH, both in the trenches and in positions of more responsibility or visibility, over a significant period of time. The award includes a lifetime Pioneers membership in ACM SIGGRAPH.

For more information about the Award and the list of past winners, go to https://www.siggraph.org/awards/outstanding-service-award/.

If you are interested in submitting a candidate please contact the Chair of the Outstanding Service Award Committee, Scott Owen, at owen@siggraph.org. The deadline is January 31, 2025.

The ACM SIGGRAPH Officer Selection Advisory Group (OSAG) provided their recommendations to the Executive Committee and the following directors were elected to serve as Chair and Treasurer–elect for 2024-2025. Their term as Chair and Treasurer will commence 1 September 2025.

• EC Chair-Elect: Darin Grant
• Treasurer-Elect: David Spoelstra

Introducing the 2024 – 2023 ACM SIGGRAPH Officers

 ACM SIGGRAPH would like to thank Mona Kasra and David Spoelstra for serving as the Chair and Treasurer for 2023 – 2024. Their leadership and guidance was invaluable.

Chair – Eakta Jain, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering at the University of Florida. Dr. Jain is interested in the safety, privacy and security of data gathered for user modeling, particularly eye tracking data. She is advancing the EC Chair role in her third year on the EC.  We look forward to her leadership in the governance of ACM SIGGRAPH.

Chair – elect – Darin Grant was elected by the EC to serve as Chair-Elect in the upcoming year. Darin’s wealth of experience and expertise as CTO of Animal Logic makes him an excellent addition to the EC.  We look forward to the contributions Darin will make as his role on the EC and as Chair-Elect.

Treasurer – Brad Lawrence is the Imagery Engineering Lead at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He began his career in the Navy and went on to various Engineering duties for ITT and Texas Instruments before joining the Space Shuttle team in 1985. Brad was ACM SIGGRAPH Treasurer from 2018-2020 and was re-elected Treasurer in 2022, so he brings a wealth of experience to this position.  We welcome his continued leadership in this area.

Treasurer – elect – David Spoelstrahas served in executive and senior engineering management roles responsible for multi-million-dollar budgets at both startups and Fortune 500 companies for the last 20 years. David got his start at SIGGRAPH as an early employee of Truevision. David was Treasurer last year, and has been reappointed to Treasurer-Elect.

ACM SIGGRAPH is a volunteer-run organization that hosts a set of conferences and year-round activities for its members. More than a thousand volunteers help create vibrant conferences and an effective organization each year.

The 2024 ACM SIGGRAPH Village Theater showcased the yearlong educational, professional development and artistic expressions from the ACM SIGGRAPH Standing Committees. Held as part of the ACM SIGGRAPH conference, the Theater offers a platform for presenting high-quality, innovative content that pushes the boundaries of visual storytelling and technology.

The kickoff of the 2024 SIGGRAPH Educators Program will include an overview of activities and opportunities with, and sponsored by, the ACM SIGGRAPH Education Committee. Additionally, the winning entries from the SpaceTime competition will be shown along with a screening of the show reel for the 2024 double-curated Faculty Submitted Student Work (FSSW) exhibit. Designed as a way for educators to share their project ideas across schools and disciplines, FSSW is an online archive of assignment and project briefs as well as a curated video emphasizing the variety of student work and schools submitted. The reel was featured in the ACM SIGGRAPH Village throughout the week.

The Digital Arts Community (DAC) presented 8 art sessions during the Conference. These sessions showcased a variety of creative works, including innovative digital art, interactive installations, and experimental projects. They highlighted the intersection of art and technology, providing a platform for artists to present their work and engage with the SIGGRAPH community.  Some included:

• Digital Arts Community and SIGGRAPH’24 Creative Content Overview started their program at the annual SIGGRAPH Conference by showing the latest work of the DAC,  which included a description of the activities throughout the year through their online exhibitions, initiatives undertaken by DAC with other communities, and they highlighted the SPARKS Lightning talks series.
• Exploring Ephemeral Spaces: Melding Technology and Performance was a panel discussion which explored the interdisciplinary approaches to experimental performance using computing, sound, and media.  Panel members discussed performance, as a contemporary art practice that thrives beyond institutional spaces.  Their conclusion is that experimental performance promotes lively discussions and provide an avenue for exchange with audiences.
• Journey to Animating a Solo Feature Film… Twice Denver Jackson, a seasoned filmmaker, dedicated the past five years to crafting solo features. He has been deeply involved in every aspect of production, including writing, character design, art direction, storyboarding, animation, background painting, compositing, and editing. His unwavering commitment to enhancing the production process while maintaining the highest quality in his final works is truly commendable. Jackson discussed his creative process and workflow with the audience. It provided insight into the mind of a filmmaker committed to delivering outstanding cinematic experiences single-handedly.

Several other sessions focused on the work of our professional chapters, work of our DEI Community, History Community, Pioneers Community and Practitioners Committee.

• From ACM: The Nature of Future Conferences and ACM Open ACM President, Dr. Yannis Ioannidis, discussed his model for the future of ACM and ACM SIGGRAPH through the lens of his initiative ACM 4.0. He also discussed the open access model, publication tiering structures, the status of the transition to open access, the impact on ACM Digital Library, and the implications and benefits of Article Processing Charges (APC) for ACM SIGGRAPH authors and contributors.
• ACM SIGGRAPH’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Townhall/Culture for Inclusion This session talked about the issues and opportunities facing diversity, equity, and inclusion professionals today, and bring together ACM SIGGRAPH members from the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee to discuss how the organization is taking the matter seriously. The panel members provided insight into how a global selection of industry experts are addressing these challenges in real-time at the organization.
• ACM SIGGRAPH Pioneers 2024 Featured Speakers Panel This year’s session starred Mary Whitton and Nick England, who co-created the Ikonas Graphics Processor in 1978. Ikonas was the world’s first General-Purpose Graphics Processor Unit, which was crucial in almost every pioneering application of computer graphics. Nick talked about those early programmable graphics processor developments, which originally came out of North Carolina State, and Mary spoke about the development of Virtual Reality technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• SIGGRAPH Thesis Fast Forward The Thesis Fast Forward showed a high level overview of nine graduating Ph.D. researchers’ work.  Each candidate had the challenge of providing a synopsis of their work in the form of 3 minutes presentations. It was an opportunity to get an overview of the open challenges in the field and interact with graduating students.
• ACM SIGGRAPH Practitioners Session: Changes and Opportunities in the Workplace, in your Career, and What it Means for You The SIGGRAPH Practitioners Session gave practitioners at the conference to have discussions, with like-minded peers, on professional development in our industries. Some of the topics included different approaches to creating and scoping engineering projects, developing tech stacks, and identifying opportunities for taking research to practice and the productization journey of a product.
• Chapters: How to Join or Start an ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter Current Chapters leaders talked about how to join or start an ACM SIGGRAPH professional or student chapter, how to make the most of your chapters experience, and to network with current chapter members.

The ACM SIGGRAPH Theater emphasizesd both technical achievements and creative storytelling, providing a platform for professionals and enthusiasts to experience the year round efforts of the ACM SIGGRAPH organization in graphics technology and digital artistry.