Famous RPI Graphics-Related Grads

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Here are 23 RPI grads who have done or are doing graphics-related work.

  1. "Salim Abi-Ezzi is ... a manager of business development for home networking at Microsoft. ... Salim had a long tenure in the domain of 3D graphics and multimedia. Salim has a Ph.D. in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, five years experience at Sun Microsystems, and seven years at Microsoft where he worked on multimedia components for Internet Explorer including DirectAnimation and DirectX Transform. Salim has four patents and sixteen technical publications." - Connections 2002
  2. Peter Atherton, PhD RPI, with Kevin Weiler, did the Weiler-Atherton concave polygon clipping algorithm, which has many web references.
  3. Karthik Bala, co-founder of Vicarious Visions.
  4. "MapInfo was founded in 1986 by four Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students - Lazlo Bardos, ...
  5. Andrew Dressel, ...
  6. John Haller, and ...
  7. Sean O'Sullivan and their advisor Michael Marvin." - GIS Development
  8. Al Barr, PhD RPI, now on the faculty at Caltech, works "to enhance the mathematical and scientific foundations of computer graphics, extending it beyond mere picture-making to the point that reconfigurable models have great predictive power." - his home page
  9. David Breen, PhD RPI, now at Drexel, among many other things, co-authored Cloth Modeling and Animation. Home page.
  10. Lou Doctor and Jay Thorborg, RPI undergrads, founded Raster Technologies Inc in the 1980s.
  11. Joaquim Jorge, RPI PhD, is now Associate Professor of Computer Science at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST/UTL), the School of Engineering of the Technical University of Lisboa, Portugal. He is Editor-in-Chief at Computers and Graphics Journal, among other accomplishments. Home, LinkedIn
  12. Mohan Kankanhalli, PhD RPI, is on the faculty of the National University of Singapore.
  13. Olin Lathrop, ME, EE RPI 1980, wrote ''The Way Computer Graphics Works'', ISBN 0471130400, and is CTO of Embed Inc.
  14. Carl Machover, BS RPI, runs Machover Associates, a computer graphics consultancy, and wrote ''The CAD/CAM Handbook''.
  15. Don Meagher, PhD RPI, founded the Octree Corp - CAD Digest.
  16. Chandra Narayanaswami, PhD RPI, Manager, Wearable Computing IBM TJ Watson Research Center, "led the multi-site IBM Research effort on developing the high function wrist watch computer running Linux". - home page.
  17. "Curtis Priem, NVIDIA Chief Technical Officer, had been the architect for the first graphics processor for the PC, the IBM Professional Graphics Adapter, and more recently had developed the GX graphics chips at Sun Microsystems." - Firingsquad.
    Priem'82 is now an RPI Trustee and a generous benefactor.
  18. Prof David F. Rogers RPI'67, is the Director of Aeronautics, The United States Naval Academy, and author of several books on graphics. Home page
  19. Tobi Saulnier, BS, MS, PhD ECSE, founder and CEO of 1st Playable Productions. Mentioned in IEEE Spectrum, Dec 2007.
  20. Jay Thorborg and Lou Doctor, RPI undergrads, founded Raster Technologies Inc in the 1980s.
  21. Kevin Weiler, PhD RPI, with Peter Atherton, did the Weiler-Atherton concave polygon clipping algorithm, which has many web references.
  22. William Yerazunis,MERL Research Lab Senior Research Scientist, PhD RPI 1987, among other things did the DiamondTouch, "a simultaneous, multi-user, touch sensitive input device". and haptic stylus - home page
  23. Ed Zander, BS (EE) RPI, among many other positions, was President and COO of Sun Microsystems, and then Chairman and CEO of Motorola.

Don't get overconfident. Theodore Cooper was also an RPI alum. He was chief engineer of the Quebec Bridge, the longest cantilever bridge in the world for many decades. It collapsed during construction in 1907, killing about 75 workers. Refs: 1, 2, 3.

Message to RPI any graphics alumnus/a not included here: Please accept my apologies and give me your info.