Dr Alvy Ray Smith cofounded two successful startups: Pixar (sold to Disney) and Altamira (sold to Microsoft). First director of computer graphics at Lucasfilm. Original member of the Computer Graphics Lab of the New York Institute of Technology. First Graphics Fellow at Microsoft. At Xerox PARC for the birth of the personal computer, the internet, and some of the earliest color pixels. Received two technical Academy Awards, for the alpha channel and digital paint systems. Invented the first full-color paint program, the HSV (or HSB) color transform, and the alpha channel. Directed the Genesis Demo in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Hired John Lasseter and directed him in The Adventures of André & Wally B. Proposed and negotiated the Academy-Award winning Disney computer animation production system, CAPS. Instrumental, as a Regent, in initiating the Visible Human Project of the National Library of Medicine. Star witness in a trial that successfully invalidated five patents that threatened Adobe Photoshop. Active in the development of the HDTV standard, arguing for progressive scan. Holds Ph.D. from Stanford University and honorary doctorate from New Mexico State University. Member of the National Academy of Engineering. Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Fellow of the American Society of Genealogists. Founding member of the Siggraph Academy. Published widely in theoretical computer science, computer graphics, and scholarly genealogy. Creator of many pieces of computer art, including Sunstone in the collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. He holds four patents and recently published a book, A Biography of the Pixel, with MIT Press (3 Aug 2021). An advisor to Baobab Studios, an award-winning VR startup in Silicon Valley. For more details see alvyray.com.
