NEW YORK, September 22, 2009

The recipient of the 2008 SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award, Maneesh Agrawala, has been named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  Agrawala, an assistant professor at the University of California Berkeley, designs visual interfaces that enhance users’ ability to synthesize and comprehend large quantities of complex digital information.  One of 24 new MacArthur Fellows, Agrawala will receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over the next five years. 

    Alain Chesnais, vice president of ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery), applauded Agrawala’s recognition as a creative researcher with the potential to make important contributions to the computer graphics field.  “SIGGRAPH honored Maneesh last year for his innovative approach to visualization, computer graphics, human-computer interaction.  His work, demonstrated over recent years at various SIGGRAPH conferences, reflects the way ACM encourages its Special Interest Groups like SIGGRAPH to raise awareness of computing and its vital role in driving innovations that enrich our lives and advance society,” said Chesnais, a former chair of SIGGRAPH. 
   
    Among his notable achievements, Agrawala developed LineDrive, a fully automated system for rendering route maps that resemble hand-drawn sketches.  This novel approach takes in to account many cognitive factors from a user’s navigation of routes, and adapts cartographic techniques to emphasize essential information.