Andries (Andy) van Dam

Most Recent Affiliation(s):

• Brown University, Computer Science, Chairman

Website:

• https://cs.brown.edu/people/avandam/

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Bio:

• SIGGRAPH 1994

  Andries van Dam is a L. Herbert Ballou University Professor and Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. He has been on Brown’s faculty since 1965, and was one of the Department’s founders and its first Chairman, from 1979 to 1985. His research has concerned computer graphics, text processing and hypermedia systems, and workstations. He has been working for more than 25 years on systems for creating and reading “electronic books,” based on high-resolution interactive graphics systems, for use in teaching and research. Van Dam received the B.S. degree from Swarthmore College in 1960 and the M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963 and 1966, respectively. A member of Sigma Xi, IEEE Computer Society, and ACM, he helped to found and was an editor of Computer Graphics and Image Processing from 1971 to 1981, and was an editor of ACM’s Transactions on Graphics from 1981 to 1986. In 1967, Professor van Dam co-founded ACM’s SIGGRAPH. The widely used reference book Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics, co-authored with J.D. Foley, was published by Addison-Wesley in 1982; the greatly expanded successor, Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, coauthored with J. Foley, S. Feiner, and J. Hughes, was published in June of 1990. Introduction to Computer Graphics, coauthored with J. Foley, S. Feiner, J. Hughes and R. Phillips, is an abridged and modified version of Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, and was published in 1993. Pascal on the Macintosh – a Graphical Approach, co-authored with David Niguidula, was published by Addison-Wesley in 1987. van Dam has authored or coauthored over 80 papers. In 1974 van Dam received the Society for Information Display’s “Special Recognition Award,” and in 1984 the IEEE Centennial Medal. In 1988 he received the State of Rhode Island Governor’s Science and Technology Award, and in 1990 he received the National Computer Graphics Association’s Academic Award. In July 1991, he received the SIGGRAPH’s Steven A. Coons Award. In October 1993, he received the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. In 1994, he received the IEEE Fellow Award and the ACM Fellow Award. He is past Chairman of the Computing Research Association, Chief Scientist at Electronic Book Technologies, and a member of Ithaca Software’s and Microsoft’s Technical Advisory Boards.  

  SIGGRAPH 1993

  Andries van Dam is a professor of Computer Science at Brown University where he has been on the faculty since 1965 and was one of the Department’s founders and its first Chairman from 1979 to 1985. His research has concerned computer graphics text processing and hypermedia systems and workstations. He has been working for over 20 years on systems for creating and reading electronic books based on high resolution interactive graphics systems for use in teaching and research. He was the coordinator of the Core graphics standard effort in the mid seventies and of the PHIGS+ definition group in the mid eighties pp van Dam received the BS degree from Swarthmore College in 1960 and the MS and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963 and 1966 respectively. He helped to found and was an editor of Computer Graphics and Image Processing from 1971 to 1981 and was an editor of ACM’s Transactions on Graphics from 1981 to 1986. In 1967 Professor van Dam co-founded ACM’s SIGGRAPH The widely used reference book Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics co-authored with J. D. Foley was published by Addison Wesley in 1982 the greatly expanded successor Computer Graphics Principles and Practice co-authored with J. D. Foley, S. K. Feoner and J. F. Hughes was published in June of 1990 Pascal on the Macintosh a Graphical Approach co-authored with David Niguidula, was published by Addison Wesley in 1987. Van Dam has authored or coauthored over 75 papers. In 1974 van Dam received the Society for Information Display’s Special Recognition Award and in 1984 the IEEE Centennial Medal. In 1988 he received the State of Rhode Island Governor’s Science and Technology Award and in 1990 he received the National Computer Graphics Association’s Academic Award. In July 1991 he received the SIGGRAPH’s Steven A. Coons Award. In May 1992 Brown University named him to the L. Herbert Ballou University Professor Chair. He is past Chairman of the Computing Research Association Senior Consulting Scientist Electronic Book Technologies Chairman of the Technical Advisory Board of ShoGraphics and a member of Microsoft’s Research Technical Advisory Board.

  SIGGRAPH 1991

  Andries van Dam was one of the founders and the first chairman of the computer science department at Brown University. He is currently professor of computer science at Brown, and senior consulting scientist at BLOC Development and Prime Computer. A member of the IEEE Computer Society and ACM, he is also cofounder of ACM Siggraph. Andy’s research interests include hypermedia, electronic books, and high-performance workstations for teaching and research.

  Andy is perhaps best known as coauthor of the widely used book Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics with James Foley and of its successor  Computer Graphics – Principles and Practice with James Foley, Steve Feiner and John Hughes. He is also known to a large body of former students as the person who got them started in the field of computer graphics.  

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Course Organizer:

• SIGGRAPH 1992, "Graphics Software Architecture for the Future"