SIGGRAPH 2018 Outstanding Service Award: Owen
Awardee(s):
Award:
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Outstanding Service Award
Description:
For his long-term service ACM SIGGRAPH recognizes Scott Owen with the 2018 Outstanding Service Award. He has been a Director on the Executive Committee, SIGGRAPH Conference Chair, SIGGRAPH Conference Advisory Group (CAG) Chair, President of ACM SIGGRAPH, and Chair of a Standing Committee.
Before becoming involved with ACM SIGGRAPH Scott was a volunteer for the Chemical Education Division of the American Chemical Society as he served as the Chair of the Computers in Chemical Education Committee for three years. Scott joined ACM and ACM SIGGRAPH in 1980 but did not attend his first SIGGRAPH Conference until 1987. There he met the first Chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH Education Committee, Steve Cunningham, and joined the Education Committee. In 1990 Steve recommended, and the Executive Committee selected, Scott to be the second Chair of the Education Committee. In 1992 this became an Executive Committee position and Scott was elected as the first Director for Education, a positon in which he served until December, 1995. During his tenure as Chair and then Director, the Education Committee considerably expanded its size and number of activities, and with the help of Steve, established a series of joint Computer Graphics Education Workshops with Eurographics. The Education Committee also established the Educators Program at the SIGGRAPH Conference starting in 1995.
In 1995, the ACM SIGGRAPH Conference Planning Committee (CPC), which was the precursor to the current CAG, changed the management model of the SIGGRAPH Conference from one with two volunteer Chairs to a single Chair assisted by a paid high level contractor. The CPC recommended, and the Executive Committee selected, Scott to be the first Chair to try the new management model for SIGGRAPH 97. That model was successful and has been followed since as SIGGRAPH 97 had almost 50,000 attendees and was the biggest SIGGRAPH Conference in history. Following his term as Conference Chair, Scott served as the CAG Chair during 2000-2005.
During 2005-2011 Scott served as President of ACM SIGGRAPH. At SIGGRAPH 2006, in Boston, a group of Asian Professors met with Scott and Alyn Rockwood, then Vice President, and asked to hold a SIGGRAPH Conference in Asia. Scott formed a task force, chaired by Alyn, who recruited representatives from all over Asia. Scott, Alyn, and the task force met in Kuala Lumpur in December 2006 and decided to proceed. The Executive Committee decided to have the first SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore in 2008, with Y.T. Lee as Chair, and the second in Yokohama, with Masa Inakage as Chair.
From 2011-2017 Scott was Chair of the External Relations Committee and from 2011-2018 Chair of the Nominations Committee. He also served two terms on the ACM SIG Governing Board (SGB) Executive Committee and one term as the SGB representative to the ACM Council. Scott continues to serve as a member of the Nominations Committee and is also Chair of the Governance Strategy Group.
Source:
- ACM SIGGRAPH Citation
