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Maneesh Agrawala

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Maneesh Agrawala
Alma materStanford University
FatherAshok Agrawala
AwardsMacArthur Fellowship (2009)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer scientist
InstitutionsBerkeley, Stanford
Doctoral advisorPat Hanrahan

Maneesh Agrawala (born 1972) is a professor of computer science at Stanford University. He returned to Stanford in 2015 as the director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, after nearly a decade on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.[1]

Life and work

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Maneesh Agrawala was born to computer-science professor Ashok Agrawala from the University of Maryland.[2] He attended the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD, where he was part of a team (including Howard Gobioff) that won a supercomputer in the 1988 SuperQuest competition.[3] He was a finalist in the 1990 Westinghouse Science Talent Search.[4]

He received a B.S. in mathematics in 1994 and a Ph.D. in computer science in 2002, both from Stanford University. While attending Stanford, he worked as a software consultant at Vicinity Corporation and in the rendering software group at Pixar Animation Studios. He received a film credit for Pixar's A Bug's Life.[5] After graduating, Agrawala worked at Microsoft Research for three years, before joining the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.[6]

Agrawala's work focuses on the design of visual interfaces that help a user process digital information, often using cognitive design concepts. For instance, LineDrive, a program developed by Agrawala, creates route maps that resemble hand-drawn maps, adapting cognitive and map-making techniques to help a computer user process information on a route. This work was the focus of his 2002 Ph.D. dissertation, "Visualizing Route Maps". He has also adapted cognitive science into visual interfaces for complex 3D models. Agrawala has also developed a system that creates step-by-step assembly instructions for complex machines, using the idea of exploded views to help the user understand the spatial relationships between elements. His user-centric approach is viewed as having broad applicability in the fields of computer graphics and user interfaces.[7]

Agrawala is the recipient of multiple awards, including an Okawa Foundation Research Grant in 2006, a Sloan Fellowship and NSF CAREER Award in 2007, a SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award in 2008, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2009.[8] He was named to the 2022 class of ACM Fellows, "for contributions to visual communication through computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and information visualization".[9]

References

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  1. ^ "UC-Berkeley Professor Named Next Director of Brown Institute". 4 March 2015.
  2. ^ "Celebrating Ashok Agrawala's 50th Anniversary at UMD". UMD Department of Computer Science. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  3. ^ Deng, Sophia (1 October 2009). "Blair alumnus named MacArthur Fellow". Silver Chips Online. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  4. ^ Bates, Steve (January 26, 1990). "Science's Brightest Young Stars: Six Area Students Make Finals of Prestigious Contest". The Washington Post. p. C1.
  5. ^ "A Bug's Life (1998) - Full cast and crew". imdb.com. Retrieved 28 February 2010.
  6. ^ "Maneesh Agrawala". John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 2010-02-27.
  7. ^ Sanders, Robert (2009-09-22). "UC Berkeley Press Release". Berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  8. ^ Maneesh Agrawala awarded the 2009 MacArthur Fellow "Genius" Grant Archived 2009-10-15 at the Wayback Machine, SIGGRAPH, September 22, 2009.
  9. ^ "Global computing association names 57 fellows for outstanding contributions that propel technology today". Association for Computing Machinery. January 18, 2023. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
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