Member Profile: Dinesh Manocha
1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
I have been a faculty member since 1992 and am currently at the University of Maryland. Previously, I attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My role includes teaching, research, service, and interactions with industry, government labs, and funding agencies.
2. What was your first job?
Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (starting in 1992)
3. Where did you complete your formal education?
PhD 1992, University of California at Berkeley
4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?
I was reading a lot of papers in SIGGRAPH proceedings as a graduate student at Berkeley. I attended my first SIGGRAPH in 1993 in Anaheim.
5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?
Attending the Fast Forward Sessions (from 2003 onwards) and meeting many senior researchers.
6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.
I have been recently working on developing mobile, autonomous robots that can navigate any terrains CM Project – GAMMA UMD. I have used a lot of classic concepts from computer graphics literature like physics-based simulation, geometric representations, rendering features and GPU computing to solve such challenging problems.
7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?
Srinivasa Ramanujan. He is one of the greatest, self-taught Indian Mathematician with no formal training.
8. What is something most people don’t know about you?
I was primarily interested in Robotics and Math as an undergraduate and graduate student. I began working on graphics problems, building on my prior experience in geometric/scientific computing.
9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?
I have had many great mentors during my graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Maryland. Many of them had a long-term vision and sought to address challenging problems in other fields by using techniques from computer graphics. I have tried to follow a similar philosophy.
10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?
Many senior colleagues and mentors influenced me. These include Fred Brooks, Jim Foley, Henry Fuchs, David Kasik, Tom Sederberg, Carlo Sequin, Turner Whitted, etc.
11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?
Working closely with brilliant 57 PhD graduates (so far) and seeing them become leaders in the field.