James Thomas (March 26, 1946 – August 6, 2010) was an American computer scientist in the field of visualization. He spent much of his career at the

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the United States Department of Energy national laboratories, managed by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science. The main campus of the laboratory is in Richland, Washington ...

Life

James Joseph Thomas was born March 26, 1946, in

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south o ...

. He majored in mathematics at

Eastern Washington University Eastern Washington University (EWU) is a public university in Cheney, Washington, United States. It shares its satellite campus in Spokane, Washington with Washington State University. Founded in 1882, the university is academically divided in ...

, and received a master's degree from

Washington State University Washington State University (WSU, or colloquially Wazzu) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Pullman, Washington, United States. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest Land-grant uni ...

in computer science. His professional career started at

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

, where he worked in the area of computer-aided graphics and design soon after graduate school in early 1970s. He later returned to his home state to join the Pacific Northwest Laboratory (later renamed Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) as a computer scientist in 1976. He rose through the ranks from senior scientist, staff scientist, chief scientist, to laboratory fellow. In the 1980s, he was a member of the founding team who conceptualized and developed the core concepts for what is today’
William R. Wiley Environmental and Molecular Sciences Laboratory
a DOE scientific user facility located at PNNL. In the early 1990s, to address the problem of information overload, Thomas headed a team of information technology researchers to develop the SPIRE document

Visualization (computer graphics) Visualization (or visualisation ), also known as graphics visualization, is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message. Visualization through visual imagery has been an effective way to communicate bot ...

visualization and analytics system. As of 2019, the successor to this system
IN-SPIRE
is still in use. In the early 2000s, Thomas led and coordinated a team to formally define a new research area,

visual analytics Visual analytics is a multidisciplinary science and technology field that emerged from information visualization and scientific visualization. It focuses on how analytical reasoning can be facilitated by interactive User interface, visual interfac ...

. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established the National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC) at PNNL in 2004, naming Thomas as its founding director. On July 31, 2009, Thomas retired from his position at PNNL after 33 years. He died on August 6, 2010.

Professional Societies

Thomas organized the

SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques) is an annual conference centered around computer graphics organized by ACM, starting in 1974 in Boulder, CO. The main conference has always been held in North ...

conference in 1987, founded and organized the first ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) gathering in 1989, chaired ACM SIGGRAPH from 1989 to 1992, served as editor-in-chief o
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
from 2002 to 2006. He chaired the IEEE Visualization conference in 2003. He helped found th
IEEE Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) Symposium
that began in 2006. Thomas has also served on industry, government, and international advisory boards.

Awards

*1985: Science Digest's Top 100 Scientific Innovations *1986: ''R&D Magazine''s R&D 100 Award *1989: Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer *1996: ''R&D Magazine'''s R&D 100 Award *1998: Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer *2007: Fellow,

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

*2009: Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation Homeland Security Award

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Jim American computer scientists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2010 deaths 1946 births