Member Profile: Jeffrey Weekley
1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
I currently serve as the Director of Research Computing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I’ve held in this role for the last five years. Prior to that, I had a similar role at the University of California’s newest campus, UC Merced. My shift to academia began when I was hired as a research associate at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. There, I went on to be a founding member of the (research) faculty at the MOVES Institute with Mike Zyda as our leader.
2. What was your first job?
As a teen, my first job was retail, selling menswear. But in the summers, I was always also a lifeguard at the community pool. As a kid in the 1980’s, working at the mall and working at the pool were pretty much the pinnacle of teen jobs. My first serious job was after college, where I worked as a cryptologist for the US Navy.
3. Where did you complete your formal education?
Complete? I’m not sure I’ll ever complete it. My dual bachelor’s degree is from the University of Northern Iowa. The US Navy also provided me with post-graduate education in Korean and Spanish, and I completed the coursework for a Master’s degree in Modeling and Simulation at the Naval Postgraduate School. I am currently pursuing a PhD from UC Santa Cruz in Computational Media. I expect to advance to candidacy next year. Let’s just say that I consider my education a work in progress!
4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?
I first came to ACM SIGGRAPH in 2001, as a volunteer for the Online Committee. A small team led by Dr. Don Brutzman set out the ambitious goal of recording every technical session, panels and many of the keynote sessions. We wanted to publish all the sessions within 24 hours! Back then, cameras were still analog, so we had to record the A/V house feeds to a S-VHS tape, then bring the tapes back to our workspace to be captured digitally and transcoded. We had banks of workstations running 24/7 during the conference to feed a web server with the content. It was exhilarating and exhausting, but we did it. We repeated that again in 2002, and in subsequent years, it became part of the regular operations of the conference.
5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?
I am sure that many ACM SIGGRAPH attendees can relate to this, but I’ve made lifelong friends at the conference. While I look forward to seeing these friends each year, one friend in particular, Rob Jagnow, has become a very close friend. We’ve traveled the world together, had many adventures, and cheered each other on as our careers flourished. I met Rob in 2001, but just very briefly. In 2002, we recognized each other out in town in San Antonio, and decided to keep in touch. That was the year we decided to form SIGGIG (SIGGRAPH Gays in Graphics), which continues on to this day as the Rainbow Meetup. At the time, we felt like such a small minority, but that initial small group of us has turned into annual meetings of around 100 people, and it’s growing.
6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.
Well, I guess I’d have to take the opportunity to highlight our work to build a community around the Rainbow Meetup. At the annual conference in 2024, it was really apparent that the community wanted more programming and more community building throughout the year. So, we’ll be working with the DEI committee, the Professional and Student Chapters Committee Chair (AJ Christensen) and others to continue to build enthusiasm and participation in ACM SIGGRAPH by creating space for the LGBTQIA+ community. This is a group of highly-talented people who have so much creativity. When we gather, there’s a palpable desire connections beyond the annual gathering for the conference. I guess in a way, it’s very much like the realization that Rob and I shared with that small group of friends who met in San Antonio in 2002.
7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?
I think I am going to have to say Eleanor Roosevelt. I’ve read a lot about her life and her work, and she seems to embody the best of humanity’s desire for a better world. She led the United Nations’ efforts to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration and the inalienable rights it outlines are the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. She was one of only a few leaders in America who opposed Execute Order 9066, which ordered the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Subsequently, she visited the camps and made sure that people heard about the patriotism of the people in the camps. She was a force for good in the world. I’m sure she’d have some things to say about the world today and I’d love to hear it.
8. What is something most people don’t know about you?
I had a partial athletic scholarship for swimming and diving at my undergraduate university. But it only covered 50% of my tuition. I got another 25% supplement for a job that I had to keep secret…I was the school’s mascot! I’d show up to the football and basketball games, as well as other sporting or social events wearing a giant foam head (of a Panther), and being goofy. It was great fun.
9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?
That’s a tough one. I’ve had so many wonderful mentors and teachers. I learned a lot from Don Brutzman about technical things and how to dive deep into a topic to truly understand it. I learned a lot from Richard Hamming, whom I never met personally, but for many years, I was the custodian of the tapes (and digital versions) of his final lecture series. Now, almost 20 years old, those musings on research, technology, innovation and the human condition still speak to me. I also learn a lot about myself from my dogs. They bring out the best in me.
10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?
Here, I think my dear friend Dana Plepys, who’s been a volunteer and technician (curating the SIGGRAPH Video Review among many other things), is someone who inspires me to contribute. Dana is a wonderful example of someone who’s made a quiet, but really important contribution to ACM SIGGRAPH over many years. I do have a word of advice for anyone though with regard to Dana…don’t try to get anywhere quickly with his during the conference. She knows EVERYONE, and is always stopping to chat.
11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?
In 2017, I was awarded the CENIC Network Innovation Award for the UC Merced Wide Area Visualization Environment (WAVE). At the time, it was the world’s largest walk-in Virtual Reality environment with 167 megapixel of stereo displays in a 5×4 matrix. We did full-body tracking as well as gaze-tracking to fix the parallax correctly. It also had a Dolby Atmos® sound system and a host of content creation tools, like drones, stereo planographic cameras, and a cluster to process data. The WAVE was part of the digital humanities institute and we went on to do a lot of interesting work with UC Merced’s humanists, and our partners at UC San Diego’s Qualcomm Institute, especially Tom DeFanti, who would be a familiar name to those who understand the history of VR and ACM SIGGRAPH.