Eric Veach
| Eric Veach | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Canada |
| Occupation | Computer scientist |
| Known for | Academy award winner |
Eric Veach is a Canadian computer scientist, and who won a technical Academy Award.[1][2]
He won his 2014 academy award for work in colour perception, as applied to computer graphics, described in his 1997 PhD thesis.[1][3] He told CTV News he hadn't done any work in computer graphics for 15 years. Veach had worked at Pixar, but, more recently, he had been a senior developer at Google.[2]
His PhD thesis, Robust Monte Carlo Methods for Light Transport Simulation, is highly cited.[3]
In 2008, the University of Waterloo, the institution were he earned his Bachelor of Mathematics, in 1990, awarded him a J. W. Graham Medal, an annual award granted to a distinguished alumnus who had studied computer science there.[2] His PhD is from Stanford University.
Veach is a strong believer in environmental causes, and served as the vice-chair of the Rainforest Trust.[4]
Farhad Manjoo named Veach and two of his non-American colleagues, at Google, in an article entitled, "Why Silicon Valley Wouldn’t Work Without Immigrants".[5] Manjoo's article attempted to explain why newly inaugurated Presiden't Donald Trump's attempts to squeeze off the flow of immigrants to the USA was dangerous. He argued that America disproportionately benefitted from allowing big brained foreigners like Veach to find work.
References
- 1 2 Cassandra Szlarski (2014-02-21). "Canuck computer whiz nabs 2 Academy Awards for movie innovation". CTV News. Archived from the original on 2017-04-26.
- 1 2 3 "Eric Veach: Distinguished Software Engineer, Google Inc., 2008 recipient of the J.W. Graham Medal". University of Waterloo. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
Prior to Google, Eric developed computer graphics software for Pixar Animation Studios (with credits in three movies).
- 1 2 Eric Veach (December 1997). "Robust Monte Carlo Methods for Light Transport Simulation". Stanford University. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Dr. Eric Veach". Rainforest Trust. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
As an early employee at Google, he led the development of the AdWords advertising platform and various components of Google Maps including the directions system.
- ↑ Farhad Manjoo (2017-02-08). "Why Silicon Valley Wouldn’t Work Without Immigrants". San Francisco: New York Times. p. B1. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
If you want to understand why tech employees went to the mat against Mr. Trump’s executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, you need to first understand the crucial role that America’s relatively open immigration policies play in the tech business.