Usually there’s just one featured speaker at SIGGRAPH. This year we have 7!
I am the Special Projects Chair for SIGGRAPH 2021, and that has meant I’ve been helping along with other SIGGRAPH committee members to put together an amazing group of featured speakers for the conference. They come from very different fields of research, computer graphics, filmmaking and related areas. It’s been a blast working with them on preparing talks, which will happen between 9-13 August, 2021–all virtually.
Here’s a rundown of each speaker:
Amy Hennig: Amy has worked at Naughty Dog and Crystal Dynamics, and recently announced a partnership with Skydance Media to explore new frontiers in interactive storytelling. She’ll be sitting down for a fireside chat with SIGGRAPH 2021 Games Focus Area Chair Carlos Gonzalez-Ochoa.
Sergio Pablos: The founder of The SPA Studios, Sergio is the director of the animated feature Klaus, and has been involved in animation for many years in Spain and in Hollywood. I’ll be in conversation with him to discuss ‘How to Build an Animation Studio’.
Dr. Kate Darling: Kate is a Research Specialist at the MIT Media Lab and author of ‘THE NEW BREED: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots.’ She will be talking about the near-term effects of robotic technology, especially social, legal and ethical issues.
Dr. Hany Farid: Hany is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley with a joint appointment in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information. His research focuses on digital forensics, forensic science, misinformation, image analysis, and human perception, and he’ll be talking about ‘Creating, Weaponizing, and Detecting Deep Fakes’.
Grant Sanderson: Grant is the author of the YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown, which focuses on higher mathematics with a distinct visual perspective, and has over 3.5 million subscribers. He’s going to be discussing some of the more interesting examples of mathematical nuances that have arisen while using programmatic visualizations in his videos to explain some topic in mathematics.
Ed Catmull and Pat Hanrahan: Ed and Pat were honored with the 2019 Turing Award for their role in advancing this field. In this fireside chat, Catmull and Hanrahan will share their perspectives on the events that advanced computer graphics and lessons for the future. Retrospective chair Andres Burbano has made this session possible.
So, as you can see, it’s a huge line-up, and just part of the enormous gathering of presenters this year at SIGGRAPH. You can register for the conference right here.
