cross pond high tech

“The announcement came totally out of the blue and I am very proud to accept the Turing Award,” said Hanrahan, who is the Canon Professor in the School of Engineering and a professor of computer science and of electrical engineering at Stanford University. “It is a great honor, but I must give credit to a generation of computer graphics researchers and practitioners whose work and ideas influenced me over the years.”

Hanrahan splits the award and its $1 million prize with one-time mentor and colleague Edward “Ed” Catmull, former president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. The pair’s recognition marks only the second time that the award has been given for computer graphics.

“All of us at Stanford are tremendously proud of Pat and his accomplishments, and I am delighted that he and his colleague Ed Catmull are being recognized with the prestigious Turing Award,” said Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne. “Pat has made pioneering contributions to the field of computer graphics. His work has had a profound impact on filmmaking and has created new artistic possibilities in film, video games, virtual reality and more.”

In the late-1980s, Hanrahan was chief architect at Pixar under Catmull, where he was principally responsible for creating the now-famous RenderMan Interface, the 3D animation application used to make such beloved films as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars and many more. RenderMan is still widely used today. Hanrahan is particularly proud of his work on RenderMan’s Shading Language, which brought dramatic, photorealistic lighting to computer animation for the first time. He has won three Academy Awards for technical achievement.

“Pat Hanrahan’s work is an extraordinary example of the kind of creative research for which Stanford Engineering is known,” said Jennifer Widom, dean of the Stanford School of Engineering and a colleague of Hanrahan’s in the departments of computer science and of electrical engineering. “His work on computer graphics and data visualization have transformed industries and fields, and I am thrilled he is receiving this recognition, which he so richly deserves.”

In a statement, ACM said Hanrahan and Catmull “fundamentally influenced the field of computer graphics through conceptual innovation and contributions to both software and hardware. Their work has had a revolutionary impact on filmmaking, leading to a new genre of entirely computer-animated feature films.”