President’s Corner

SIGGRAPH Members,

The Executive Committee has established a new award  to honor educators in computer graphics and interactive techniques who are making a significant impact on any educational level, from grade school through higher ed. The ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Educator Award will be given annually, beginning March of 2019 and will honor members who are innovative in their approach to education and who are making a difference in their respective disciplines through leadership and student engagement.

The award recipient will be selected through a nomination process administered by a five-member committee, and I am happy to announce that Erik Brunvand will serve as inaugural chair of this committee. Erik is currently an associate professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah where he has been teaching and conducting research in computer engineering since 1990. At SIGGRAPH, he has been an active member since joining in 2006, contributing to panels and workshops and taking on committee roles many of which have been centered on education. For the past two years he has served on the SIGGRAPH Conference Organizing Committee as Education Focus Chair and assembled the Educator’s Forum, a two-day mini-conference at SIGGRAPH devoted to educational topics.

It is wonderful to have Erik on board as chair of this new committee. Educating the next-generation of computer scientists remains a priority for Erik, and holds equal importance to conducting his own research.

Of taking on this new role, Erik says, “We all remember educators who were pivotal in our own development, and some of those educators have been transformational for a large number of students who have gone on to do amazing things in the areas of computer graphics and interactive techniques. We’re looking to recognize those individuals who have had such a profound impact on our field.”

Completing his first order of business in September, Erik formed a committee comprised of members who are education-minded and represent a wide array of backgrounds. The inaugural committee members are: Mike Bailey (Oregon State University); Glenn Goldman (NJ Institute of Technology); Gitta Domik-Kienegger (Universitat Paderborn); Peter Shirley (NVIDIA); and Rejane Spitz (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro).

For details about the new SIGGRAPH Distinguished Educator Award and more about the nomination and selection process, visit the awards page. We intend to present the recipient with the award at next year’s SIGGRAPH conference.

Jessica Hodgins

SIGGRAPH Members,

The field of computer graphics and interactive techniques is diverse and evolving. The Executive Committee is supporting this evolution by setting up programs to bring emerging and related areas into the fold. We want ACM SIGGRAPH to be the place where new, exciting technologies in and adjacent to computer graphics and interactive techniques are being discovered and advanced.

One of the ways we’re working toward this goal is through programs that have the potential to spark research and innovation in new areas. To this end, at this summer’s SIGGRAPH in Vancouver, we debuted the Sunday Workshop series—three full-day workshops on topics related to future applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques. At Vancouver, these workshops focused on healthcare, autonomous driving applications, and truth in graphics. Led by experts in their respective fields, the workshops gave participants deeper exposure to these areas while providing time for discussions and networking. We also created a series of morning talks which at SIGGRAPH in Vancouver focused on healthcare, educational models, and an analysis of future trends (organized in 2018 by Mk Haley).

Adam Bargteil chairs the New Communities Committee, one of Executive Committee’s Strategic committees and the group that put on this year’s workshops. For next year, we plan to expand the program, now renamed to SIGGRAPH Frontiers, to include a larger set of workshops on Sunday before the conference and a set of morning talks on Sunday through Thursday (co-organized by Mk Haley and the New Communities Committee).  

Adam is currently seeking workshop organizers to spearhead the workshops for next year’s program. These volunteers will propose topics and recruit invited speakers. In preliminary brainstorming sessions, the committee has compiled a list of potential workshop topics, which includes textiles, manufacturing, fabrication of microstructures, robotics, and assistive technologies. We would like to expand that list with ideas from the community.

We expect there to be a feedback loop created by hosting these types of programming. An invited speaker who gives a talk that inspires us could lead to a workshop on that topic the next year, which in turn, might evolve into an annual specialized conference if the topic gains traction among attendees. I believe we’ll find that by identifying emerging fields and introducing new communities to SIGGRAPH, we will be able to form future partnerships and collaborations with sectors we may not have previously considered.

Those interested in proposing a topic for a workshop or a talk, or in chairing a workshop, should get in touch with Adam directly at bargteil@siggraph.org. Growing our community is a big part of our strategic mission for the next few years, and developing SIGGRAPH Frontiers is a key component. We hope you’ll consider getting involved and sharing your ideas!

Jessica Hodgins

SIGGRAPH Members,

Many of you already know the value we place on volunteership at ACM SIGGRAPH. Our organization is governed and driven by our a remarkable/energetic group of volunteers. Without member volunteers we would not—could not—have the dynamic, diverse and knowledgeable organization we have today.  

As a SIGGRAPH member and volunteer for 18 years and counting, I really do believe that, collectively, we can make a greater impact, and this translates in our successful programming, workshops and SIGGRAPH conferences. Also, from a personal perspective, I am genuinely grateful for the experience I’ve gained through volunteering—leadership, communications and networking skills—which I think are extremely valuable skill sets to have, and having served in various volunteer roles has allowed me to form relationships and collaborations with many creative, bright professionals in our shared fields.

True, volunteering involves a bit of time commitment. For most of us, with busy careers, juggling multiple projects, family and personal lives, our time is limited. But please know—and consider—that we have a wide range of volunteer opportunities with varying levels of time commitment; some roles may require just 2-4 hours a week.

For instance, right now, we’re in need of fluent Korean and Japanese speakers who can translate SIGGRAPH conference materials to English, and vice versa. We’re also seeking volunteers for conference documentation as part of our Publications Committee. This role consists of documenting conference programs, such as our Computer Animation Festival at both SIGGRAPH conferences, production sessions and the Art Gallery at SIGGRAPH Asia. For more about these two opportunities, email Diana Arrelano, International  Resources Committee and Stephen Spencer, Publications Committee.

On the Executive Committee, which would require roughly 5 hours per week, we’ll be searching for three directors, immediately. These directors are voting members of the Executive Committee who help make decisions on behalf of ACM SIGGRAPH. Reach out to Rebecca Strzelec.

Please take a moment to look at a comprehensive list of opportunities on our Volunteers Page. There are several volunteer roles with varying degrees of responsibilities. For members who are unsure yet about volunteering or would like to know more about getting involved in general, please don’t hesitate to contact an ACM SIGGRAPH Program Manager who will route your questions to the appropriate EC Member of Standing Chair.

This marks my 18th year as a SIGGRAPH member volunteer. The  idea of building my network with other like-minded researchers, academics and industry players in computer science is what initially drew me to ACM SIGGRAPH. Getting involved as a volunteer has enriched my experience even more so, opening up another world that, for me, has been truly beneficial. Please consider getting involved–we can really use you!  

Jessica Hodgins

SIGGRAPH Members,

The Executive Committee has established a new award  to honor educators in computer graphics and interactive techniques who are making a significant impact on any educational level, from grade school through higher ed. The ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Educator Award will be given annually, beginning March of 2019 and will honor members who are innovative in their approach to education and who are making a difference in their respective disciplines through leadership and student engagement.

The award recipient will be selected through a nomination process administered by a five-member committee, and I am happy to announce that Erik Brunvand will serve as inaugural chair of this committee. Erik is currently an associate professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah where he has been teaching and conducting research in computer engineering since 1990. At SIGGRAPH, he has been an active member since joining in 2006, contributing to panels and workshops and taking on committee roles many of which have been centered on education. For the past two years he has served on the SIGGRAPH Conference Organizing Committee as Education Focus Chair and assembled the Educator’s Forum, a two-day mini-conference at SIGGRAPH devoted to educational topics.

It is wonderful to have Erik on board as chair of this new committee. Educating the next-generation of computer scientists remains a priority for Erik, and holds equal importance to conducting his own research.

Of taking on this new role, Erik says, “We all remember educators who were pivotal in our own development, and some of those educators have been transformational for a large number of students who have gone on to do amazing things in the areas of computer graphics and interactive techniques. We’re looking to recognize those individuals who have had such a profound impact on our field.”

Completing his first order of business in September, Erik formed a committee comprised of members who are education-minded and represent a wide array of backgrounds. The inaugural committee members are: Mike Bailey (Oregon State University); Glenn Goldman (NJ Institute of Technology); Gitta Domik-Kienegger (Universitat Paderborn); Peter Shirley (NVIDIA); and Rejane Spitz (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro).

For details about the new SIGGRAPH Distinguished Educator Award and more about the nomination and selection process, visit the awards page. We intend to present the recipient with the award at next year’s SIGGRAPH conference.

Jessica Hodgins

SIGGRAPH Members,

Now that another inspiring and successful SIGGRAPH conference is behind us, I would like to tell you about some ways your Executive Committee (EC) is supporting our diverse and growing community.

When the EC met at the end of Jeff Jortner’s presidency, we agreed on a shared vision for the future of our organization: Enabling everyone to tell their stories.

Computer graphics and interactive techniques is about communicating in innovative and inspiring ways. Telling stories using Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (CG&IT), whether it’s explaining research findings or entertaining huge audiences or helping people understand the world, can change societies and cultures—we want to be the community for the existing and emerging fields that use CG&IT to connect people by telling those stories. We want to ensure we remain relevant and meaningful to our existing diverse communities—this diversity of content and community has always been a strength of SIGGRAPH. We also want to welcome newly emerging communities such as computational fabrication—these new areas are critical to our future success.

We are focused on two lines of effort as we work to achieve our vision. First, we want to remain relevant and meaningful to our existing communities and provide them with ever more professional value in the future. We have established a new committee focused on Diversity and Inclusion issues to ensure everyone in our community has a voice and truly feels they are a part of SIGGRAPH. We’ve also created new award categories to celebrate our innovative educators, our outstanding practitioners, and those who have made significant contributions to our field over the years. We’ve developed new programming to support our doctoral students, including the Thesis Fast Forward and the Doctoral Consortium, which both debuted at SIGGRAPH in Vancouver this year. A year-round mentoring program for students is also in the works, and we hosted the second meeting of the SIGGRAPH Women’s Mentoring Network at this year’s conference.

Our second line of effort is dedicated to reaching out to new communities and welcoming them to the SIGGRAPH family. Our hope is that by building bridges to neighboring communities with problems that are amenable to the techniques that we have developed in computer graphics, we can provide opportunities for our members to extend their research and practice.  At the conference, we hosted three all-day Sunday workshops. This year’s topics were “Care for Chronic Health Conditions,” “Autonomous Vehicles,” and “Truth in Images, Video, and Graphics.” We welcome suggestions for topics for next year’s workshops. Our SIGGRAPH Next program looked to the future with morning talks on the future implications for CG&IT on education, medicine, and simulation.

In a future column, I will update you on our progress on improving our digital presence to ensure you can connect with other members and access SIGGRAPH materials, how we are leveraging the data we have about our members and the content that they create to customize the member experience, and how we are improving our communications to members, conference attendees, and potential members.

I welcome your involvement in our efforts. Please check out volunteer opportunities at https://www.siggraph.org/volunteer. If you have suggestions for other things that we should do to support our community, please don’t hesitate to email me at president@siggraph.org.

Jessica Hodgins