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Ken Perlin, professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University, received the SIGGRAPH 2008 Achievement Award on August 11 in Los Angeles. At this occasion, he gave a two minute speech to point out that nowadays, Computer Graphics people are both artists and scientists and that this should be reflected in teaching the next generation. Perlin said: "The late Rich Gold spoke of the four kinds of creator: Artist, Scientist, Engineer, and Designer. Most of the world foolishly believes these are different people. But everyone in this room knows better: each of us must learn to be a synthesis of all of them." Currently, in most places, the teaching in these fields is still separated, hence the need for a new way of teaching. Perlin posited that to do good research in graphics, each individual needs to embody all four of types of creator. When I spoke to him about the award, Perlin told me that: "teaching must encourage this synthesis in students” and that “computer graphics is an excellent curricular subject to use if the goal is to break down the barriers of the different ways of thinking, and to raise a generation that understands how to think and create in an interdisciplinary way." In fact, Perlin believes that he received the achievement award partly because, through the years, he has worked in a diverse set of areas, not only in computer graphics research (such as modeling, texture synthesis, animation, user interfaces and web-based applications) but also in the general area of teaching. He told this reporter that he plans to spend his next twenty years on continuing to develop things that have a major impact in any given area, with a strong emphasis on education. Indeed, Perlin considers that SIGGRAPH is now going through a challenging time because the field has matured to the point where it has become very broad. As a result, it becomes problematic to address all of the relevant topics in a single conference. In that sense, he believes that the remodeling of the conference this year has had a positive impact. Evolving just like the conference, Perlin has recently started his own blog at http://blog.kenperlin.com where he talks about education and algorithms, among other diverse topics, but mainly about people and the relationships between them.
In addition, Perlin was chosen to host the very first Computer Animation Festival Awards Ceremony this year. His words to the potential winners were that they should "prepare something fun to say, and keep it short!" Indeed, Perlin is rather a specialist at saying fun things, whether he is in a classroom or hanging out with friends. When I asked him why, in his opinion, he is receiving the achievement award now, he joked that "they finally realized that if they waited any longer, I'd be dead!"
Previously, Perlin received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, which are widely used in feature films and television. He has also received the TrapCode award for achievement in computer graphics research, the NYC Mayor's award for excellence in Science and Technology, the Sokol award for outstanding Science faculty at NYU, and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation.
Caroline Larboulette.
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