| Character Pipeline Supervisor, Sony Pictures Imageworks, 2004-present. |
| Supervised character pipeline and tool development for Open Season, Surf's Up!, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and G-Force. Co-supervised a team to develop and maintain facility standards and tools across all Imageworks shows. Headed up a team to design, develop and maintain a pipeline for character setup and animation. Specified and helped to design source control system for multi-show production environment. Served as technical liason between character group and other departments. Developed hierarchical, modular character setup system. Currently working on pipeline for large effects/character hybrid systems (G-Force). |
| Senior Character Technical Director, Sony Pictures Imageworks, 2001-2003. |
| Set up and maintained characters for Chubb-Chubbs, Early Bloomer, Matrix II, Matrix III, Haunted Mansion, Cursed. Developed tools for character setup and pipeline. |
| Character Technical Director, PDI/DreamWorks, 1999-2001. |
| Set up and maintained characters for Shrek. Developed pipeline for skin generation and relaxation, researched dynamic skin. Developed tools for collision detection/response, deformation, software design and efficiency, user interfaces. |
| Research and Development Staff, PDI/DreamWorks, 1997-1999. |
| Developed software for particle systems, FX, and dynamic systems for CG characters in Antz. Implemented and supported tools: curve drawing/editing, rotoscoping, camera tracking, various setup tools. |
| Software Engineer, Xaos Inc., 1994-1997. |
| Designed long-term plan for software development, participated in specification and hiring of software team. Worked extensively with animators to determine software needs and streamline production process. Research and development on tools and systems for animators and programmers: Particle systems, metaballs, matting, viewing/fitting splines to motion capture data, UI for 3D manipulation and procedural animation. Animation and modeling for IMAX film The Magic of Flight, Formula 409 commercial, Intel promo. |
| Research Assistant, EVL, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1987-1994. |
| Audio research and development for The CAVE virtual environment. Research on physically based modeling, genetic algorithms, artificial life, generation and control of audio. Software development and data visualization for EVL industrial clients: Monsanto, American Express, North Chicago Medical School, UIC Business School. Software development for programming language RT/1: Added rendering (scanline zbuffer, Phong shading, texture mapping), control structures, improved memory management. |
| Programmer, Western Anchor, DeKalb, IL, Spring 1991. |
| Made modifications and additions to redistricting system used by Illinois State Congress, served as technical liaison to House and Senate users. |
| Intern, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, Summer 1990. |
| Designed addition of rigid body dynamics to swish, a physically-based simulation system. |
| Biomedical Engineer, Hines VA Hospital, Hines, IL, summers 1989 and 1987. |
| Research in physically-based modeling of flexible bodies; collected and analyzed data for normal and amputee gaits, to aid in prosthesis design. |
| Ph.D., Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL), Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), 1994. Dissertation: An Organization for High-Level Interactive Programmatic Control of Computer-Generated Sound. Explored new paradigms of sound control for use in the creation of multi-modal user interfaces, with practical applications in the areas of virtual reality and data visualization. |
| M.S.E.E., EVL, EECS Dept., UIC, 1989. Thesis: Multiprocessor Considerations for Visual Array Analysis. Ported RT/1 graphics programming language to the Truevision Vista Graphics Coprocessor; designed and implemented system to visually inspect large areas of memory. |
| B.S.E.E., EECS Dept., UIC, 1986. Major: Computer Science. |