Member Profile: Aaron Hosier
1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
Since 1992 I’ve been an IT Analyst for the University of Nebraska, responsible for maintaining a majority of the online learning environments used by the NU system. I also research emerging technologies for their possibility to be used in the instructional environment.
2. What was your first job?
Working for my father as a well driller, electrician and plumber.
3. Where did you complete your formal education?
I earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Nebraska.
4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?
I attended my first conference in 2001 at the recommendation of my boss at the time. He new I had done some Virtual Reality (VR) development and was interested in computer graphics. When the Information Technology Services (ITS) Chair position opened up in 2012 I felt it would be a great way to start giving back to an organization I’ve learned so much from.
5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?
At my first conference in 2001 I attended a session on Augmented Reality (AR) put on by Mark Billinghurst. It was the first time I had ever seen AR, and one word kept echoing in my head: Cool. At that point I knew I had to be a part of this group.
6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.
As part of the Digital Presence strategy group we’ve talked about creating a community like Stack Exchange for the Graphics community. I think this could work quite well with the dedication and enthusiasm our community demonstrates.
7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?
Leonardo da Vinci. The sheer scope of what he did and accomplished is overwhelming. I’d love to talk to him about how he came up with his ideas and his processes for bringing those ideas to life.
8. What is something most people don’t know about you?
I’ve been collecting comic books for most my life, and currently have about 10,000.
9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?
My father. Being self-employed he instilled in myself and siblings our work ethic. He also instilled in us our creativeness, as a lot of the tools and techniques used in our business had to be created from scratch.
10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?
No particular individual, but the community as a whole. I’ve learned so much from so many different people by being a part of ACM SIGGRAPH that I felt I needed to contribute back in whatever way I could.
11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?
In 2019 I built a system to extract course grades out of the university’s Canvas LMS system and populate them into our student information system. I was recently at a friends house for dinner and he was talking about this new tool he used to post his students grades from all the courses he taught and how a process that would normally took him a couple of days was now done in a minutes. I smiled and said “yeah, that was me”.