Angus Forbes
Strategic Researcher Engagement Team, Nvidia
Title: From Industry to Academia to Industry: The Value of an Interdisciplinary Perspective
Abstract:
In this presentation, I’ll describe my career journey from working as a programmer for startup companies in New York during the dot-com era, to enrolling in a PhD program in my early 30s, to becoming a tenured professor at R1 universities, and finally to stepping away from academia and joining the largest company in the world. I’ll present a few of my more interesting projects and discuss some of my perspectives on the value of having an interdisciplinary focus, on nurturing your creative acumen, and on developing the skills needed to thrive amongst the AI.
Bio:
I work at NVIDIA, where I am part of the Strategic Research Collaboration team supporting the NVIDIA AI Technology Center group. Prior to joining NVIDIA, I was an Associate Professor of Interactive Media and Computer Graphics in the Computer Graphics Technology Department at Purdue University. My interdisciplinary research in computational media focuses on topics in graphics and visualization, and recent projects from my lab include the creation of interactive tools for visualizing large simulation datasets, bio-inspired approaches to data reconstruction, and neural rendering architectures for temporally stable real-time denoising and supersampling. I am interested in designing interfaces and developing interaction techniques that augment our ability to reason about complex datasets and to facilitate effective data analysis. I am also engaged in exploring the creative use of technologies in order to enable new forms of artistic expression and to provide critical perspectives into the sociotechnical systems that govern contemporary life. I was an Associate Professor in the Computational Media Department at University of California, Santa Cruz from 2017–2022, where I directed the UCSC Creative Coding Lab, and before that I was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University of Illinois Chicago from 2014–2017, affiliated with the Electronic Visualization Laboratory. I completed my graduate work in the Media Arts & Technology Program and the Computer Science Department at University of California, Santa Barbara. I work from my home office in Evanston, IL, and I can be reached by email at aforbes@nvidia.com.
William Vercellone
(847) 491-8646
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