2023 ACM SIGGRAPH Candidate Slate

The ACM SIGGRAPH Nominating Committee has proposed the following candidates for the 2023 ACM SIGGRAPH election which will commence on 15 June 2023:

DIRECTOR A:

Mathieu Desbrun, Inria/X
Alla Sheffer, University of British Columbia

DIRECTOR B:
Elizabeth Baron, Unity Technologies
Marc Petit, Epic Games

DIRECTOR C:
Courtney Starrett, Texas A&M University
Victoria Szabo, Duke University

In accordance with the ACM SIGGRAPH Bylaws, additional candidates may be placed on the ballot by petition. All candidates must be ACM Professional Members as well as members of ACM SIGGRAPH. Anyone interested in petitioning must inform ACM Headquarters, Pat Ryan (ryanp@hq.acm.org), of their intent to petition by 5 April 2023. Petitions must be submitted to ACM Headquarters for verification by  18 April 2023.

The Nominating Committee
Thierry Frey, Chair
Dena DeBry
Jenny Dana
Arik Shamir
Larry Bafia
Scott Owen

Eakta Jain, Ph.D

SIGGRAPH’s success as a dynamic professional community is, in large part, due to the work of the dedicated volunteers who bring their experience and passion to the organization.  Eakta Jain, recently elected to the SIGGRAPH Executive Committee (EC), sees her new role as an opportunity to give back. “It reflects that my professional community trusts me to look out for SIGGRAPH and help steer it such that it continues to be vibrant in the years to come.”

Eakta first became interested in robotics in middle school, inspired by a television show that featured Kismet, the robot head made by Dr. Cynthia Breazeal at MIT as a machine that can recognize and simulate human emotions.  Eakta’s father, an electronics engineer and entrepreneur working in robotics and embedded systems, recognized his daughter’s fascination with the subject and encouraged Eakta to pursue her interest.  Her first job, while studying for her Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, was with her father’s company. Her work to conceptualize and execute a visual programming interface was unpaid – but provided Eakta with the invaluable experience of producing a tangible outcome to present for feedback. 

Eakta’s decision to pursue graduate studies Carnegie Mellon University was a result of photos of the “cool stuff” in the CMU robotics lab taken by her mother, a computer science teacher who also ran the school robotics club, during a professional development visit to CMU. 

Now an associate professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida, Eakta brings industry experience at Texas Instrument R&D Labs, Disney Research Pittsburgh and Walt Disney Animation Studios to her work as a researcher, teacher, academic supervisor and mentor.  She and her students explore topics at the intersection of graphics/VR and privacy/security, conducting research on mitigating privacy risks while enabling the generation of compelling virtual experiences and digital avatars.

When Eakta first started thinking about the concept of privacy, she was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the literature on the topic. A colleague introduced her to the writings of Helen Nissenbaum, professor of Information Science and founding director of the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech in New York City.  Eakta has been inspired by Nissenbaum’s work on privacy, bias in digital systems, trust online, ethics in design, and accountability in computational and algorithmic systems and is intrigued by the influence of philosophy on computer science.

Eakta is excited about her new role as a member of SIGGRAPH Executive Committee, where, in addition to ensuring the organization’s sustainability setting its strategic direction and guiding new initiatives, she chairs the Nurturing Communities strategy group and serve as liaison to the EC for the Career Development group. She is especially interested in how the organization can provide a balance of online and in-person presence, with virtual offerings that reach a large, international audience and in-person events that cultivate and strengthen personal and professional networks.

Eakta notes that, in addition to the ongoing support and encouragement she received from her parents, she had great mentors and role models, including Jessica Hodgins and Nancy Pollard at CMU, Karen Liu at Georgia Tech and Marie-Paule Cani at Ecole Polytechnique. She continues in that tradition by having mentored more than 30 students during her eight-year tenure at the University of Florida. And, as a faculty member and mother of young children, Eakta understands that life is imperfect and so is she. “I have been often asked “how do you do it all” and I worry that this sentence perpetuates that fallacy because my life is not perfect, I don’t do it all, and indeed, no one can.  There are so many difficulties and imperfections in me that are not part of a profile and the most important thing that my awesome mentors did for me was to let me see their vulnerabilities and hardships that were not visible to me.”

When asked what advice she has for young women, Eakta says “I reframe this question to myself as “what would I tell my younger self?”. And, if I could go back in time, I would say “who you are is enough”. Many a time, I felt that I should be smarter, or cleverer, or more strong-willed or more decisive or any number of things different from who I am. Of course we all have things we need to work on and ways in which we will grow over time. But at any given moment in time, who you are is enough.”

With a father who worked in the field, a mother who taught computer science and nurtured interest in robotics in her students and a younger brother with a PhD in robotics, Eakta quips that she “joined the family business”.  And Eakta’s students, research colleagues and the SIGGRAPH community at large are fortunate to benefit from her expertise, experience and volunteer commitment.

Member Profile: Eakta Jain | ACM SIGGRAPH

Pioneers of Computer Graphics Education

Next in the ongoing series of panels from the SIGGRAPH Pioneers comes a discussion with some of the pioneering educators of the art and science of Computer Graphics. Moderator William Joel hosts a distinguished panel of long-time scholars of CGI and Interactive Techniques, including Edward Angel, Glenn Goldman, Don Greenberg, Barbara Mones, and Scott Owen.


Join us March 8, 2023 at 08:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) for a webinar you won’t want to miss. Registration is required for attendance.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Call for 2023 Candidates for the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee

SIGGRAPH’s mission is to nurture, champion, and connect researchers and practitioners of Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. Members of the EC are primarily responsible for oversight and strategic planning for ACM SIGGRAPH. EC members also serve as liaisons to the ACM SIGGRAPH Standing Committees, lead strategy teams, and serve as representatives to the conference advisory groups for the SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia conferences. They attend 2 physical meetings per year, including the annual SIGGRAPH Conference as well as regularly scheduled (on average two to three per week) teleconference meetings for the Executive Committee and various sub-committees. The average workload is around 6-10 hours per week. 

An ACM SIGGRAPH Director is a voting member of the Executive Committee who helps make decisions on behalf of ACM SIGGRAPH. All ACM SIGGRAPH Directors must be members of both ACM and ACM SIGGRAPH.

Expectations for all ACM SIGGRAPH EC members:

  • Set the strategic direction for the organization to best support the community of researchers, practitioners, and artists working in computer and graphics and interactive techniques
  • Promote technical and creative excellence, through taking an active role in the community as individuals
  • Adhere to the cultural expectations of the organization
  • Supervise the operational activities of the organization which include:
    • Provide benefits for ACM SIGGRAPH members within the scope and financial resources of the organization
    • Provide high-quality resources and programs (conferences, newsletters, etc.) within the scope of ACM SIGGRAPH’s mission statement
    • Promote communication and interaction both within ACM SIGGRAPH and between ACM SIGGRAPH and the broader community
    • Oversee conferences, symposia and workshops, both for quality and fiscal soundness
    • Promote and publicize ACM SIGGRAPH achievements

Specific duties of Directors include:

  • Take on two of the following jobs:
    • Lead or actively participate in one of the teams which are collectively responsible for the strategic work of the Executive Committee
    • Act as a liaison to a group of 3-6 of the ACM SIGGRAPH Standing Committees
    • Act as a liaison to one of the conference advisory groups (SIGGRAPH or SIGGRAPH Asia)
  • Lead or actively participate in two calls/month for each of the groups selected from the above list
  • Vote on important decisions affecting ACM SIGGRAPH strategy and operations
  • Attend ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee meetings (both 2 in-person meetings per year and two hour-long calls/month)
  • Some directors will also serve as Chair and Treasurer for one year during their term (see below for details).

More information about the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee can be found in Section 2 and about the Standing Committees and Strategy Groups in Section 6 of the ACM SIGGRAPH Policy Guidelines.

There are nine elected Directors and the Officers will be selected from the Directors by the Executive Committee, with duties shown below.  This means that new Directors may be asked to serve as one of the Officers.

Duties of the Officers: from the ACM SIGGRAPH Bylaws:

Article 5. Duties of the Officers

The EC shall select, from among its directors, a Chair, Chair-elect, Treasurer, and Treasurer-elect who will fulfill the duties outlined below.

5.1 Chair. The duties of the Chair are:

  • Leading and managing ACM SIGGRAPH;
  • calling and presiding at EC meetings; and
  • conducting ACM SIGGRAPH’s activities in accordance with the policies of the ACM;

5.2 Chair-elect. The duties of the Chair-elect are:

  • Assisting the Chair in leading and managing ACM SIGGRAPH; and
  • residing at meetings when the Chair is absent.

5.3 Treasurer. The duties of the Treasurer are:

  • Managing ACM SIGGRAPH’s finances according to the Financial Accountability Policy of the ACM.
  •  Reporting ACM SIGGRAPH’s finances to members at least once a year in ACM SIGGRAPH’s regular publications.

5.4 Treasurer-elect. The duties of the Treasurer-elect are:

  • To shadow and assist the Treasurer in managing ACM SIGGRAPH’s finances.

Those interested in applying for any of these positions please contact Thierry Frey.