Member Profile: Alyn Rockwood

1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?

Art (including painting, applied math and computer graphics). All my life.

2. What was your first job?

Teaching math and physics in a German “Gymnasium.”

3. Where did you complete your formal education?

DAMTP, Cambridge University, UK

4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?

Mickey Mantle (not of baseball fame) came to me at Evans and Sutherland and suggested a SIGGRAPH paper on our work in hardware texturing and antialiasing (1981).

5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?

The way my SIGGRAPH 2003 committee rallied when I told them we were cutting $3 million from their budgets, and in a couple of cases, eliminating their programs.

6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.

Come to my talk at SIGGRAPH this July on “Subdivision modeling without subdivision.”

7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?

Really, after half an hour of thought, I cannot answer this. And, the list of candidates is too long to convey.

8. What is something most people don’t know about you?

I played semi-professional basketball in Germany for two years.

9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?

Outside my mother (for obvious reasons), M.J.D. Powell, FRS. He taught me how to endure criticism.

10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?

Scott Owen. (This will probably surprise him) :-)

11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moments?

Having former students thank me.