Andries van Dam

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Andries "Andy" van Dam is a professor of computer science and former Vice-President for Research at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Originally appointed as a professor of applied mathematics, he helped to found the computer science program as a joint project between the departments of applied mathematics and engineering. When the program was promoted to a full department, van Dam served as its first chair, from 1979 to 1985.

At the University of Pennsylvania in 1966, he became the second person to ever receive a Ph.D. in Computer Science.

Van Dam is perhaps most renowned for building the first hypertext system, HES. The term hypertext, however, was coined by Ted Nelson who was working for him at the time.^[1]

He is also known for co-authoring Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice along with J.D. Foley, S.K. Feiner, and J.F. Hughes. This book is generally considered one of the most important texts in computer graphics and is often fondly referred to as the "Bible" of computer graphics.

In 1967, Professor van Dam co-founded ACM SIGGRAPH.^[2]

Currently, Professor van Dam is teaching several courses in computer graphics at Brown University. In addition, he often teaches one introductory computer science course per semester. He is also serving on the Technical Board of Microsoft Research, as Chairman of the Rhode Island Governor's Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC), and as Chairman of the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal committee.

[edit] Trivia

When the Brown's Center for Informational Technology was built, Andy demanded it include showers and a Chinese restaurant. The showers were built and continue to be used to this day.[1]

The character of Andy in the film "Toy_Story" is supposedly named for Andy Van Dam. Supposedly the "filmmakers", many of whom had Andy as a professor, wanted to pay tribute to his pioneering work in computer graphics. This story is told during admissions tours at Brown University and has made it in the IMDB trivia for Toy Story page. Andy denies this rumor, and it is doubtful that it is true, since those who work at Pixar who had Andy as a professor probably have no impact on story issues (like character's names), since they mainly work on technical issues. This rumor probably is derived from the possibility that Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice appears on Andy's bookshelf in the film "Toy_Story". [2]