Color & Imaging Workflow Leader. OCIO TSC Chair, D&I Working Group Co-Chair.

Cary Phillips is R&D Supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco, where he has worked since 1994. He holds a PhD in computer graphics from the University of Pennsylvania. Cary is a member of the VFX Branch the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and he serves on the Academy’s Science and Technology Council as well as the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Main Committee. He has received three Technical Achievement Awards from the Academy for technology related to digital character animation. He has over 20 screen credits, and he’s worked on films from the Star Wars, Avengers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and Transformers franchises.

Christopher Kulla leads the Open Shading Language project and is a Principal Rendering Programmer at Epic Games. In the past he was a principal software engineer at Sony Picture Imageworks where he has worked on the in-house branch of the Arnold renderer since 2007. He focuses on ray-tracing kernels, sampling techniques and volume rendering. In 2017 he was recognized with a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his work on the Arnold renderer.

I am a driven individual that craves challenges, both at work and in life. I have spent over 20 years honing my skills to become a specialist in software performance optimization. I have used those skills to establish a long history of success improving the user-experiences of dozens of ISV applications and Open-Source Software across the gaming, creator, and media ecosystems. I have a mastery of software engineering practices using multiple programming languages and possess a deep knowledge of x86-based microprocessor architectures. I use this unique experience to drive changes into future microprocessor designs to create better user-experiences through hardware-software co-design. For me, optimizing user-experiences on compute devices is a passion, and I am always looking for new challenges to help me learn and grow.

I'm an engineering director at Epic Games for the Unreal Editor where I focus on low-level editor systems, UI tech, UX and content interoperability. I led the development of Unreal Datasmith and the integration of USD into Unreal. Prior to joining Epic, I worked at Ubisoft as a generalist programmer on the Assassin's Creed game engine.

Jonathan Stone is a Lead Rendering Engineer in the Lucasfilm Advanced Development Group and the lead developer of MaterialX. He has designed real-time rendering and look-development technology for Lucasfilm since 2010, working on productions including The Mandalorian, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Pacific Rim. Previously he led graphics development at Double Fine Productions, where he designed the rendering engines for Brütal Legend and Psychonauts.

Kimball Thurston is a senior researcher at Weta Digital Ltd. in New Zealand, focused on rendering and related imaging areas. For more than 20 years, he has provided software for the visual effects and general film industry. In 2012, he and his colleagues were awarded a scientific and engineering award by the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences for image processing software used for film restoration and image reparation.

Matthew Low is a Principal Engineer and Technical Lead at DreamWorks Animation. Matthew focuses on technical strategy and integration efforts for USD and real time game engine technologies within the feature film pipeline, as well as representing DreamWorks to the Academy Software Foundation on the Technical Advisory Council. Matthew graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Engineering Physics and Computer Science, and a M.S. in Computer Graphics.

Bandai, Sanctuary Woods, Disney, Lucasarts, ILM, Apple, Oculus Research. Pixar: Tech for Stories