Ronald Paul "Ron" Fedkiw (born February 27, 1968) is a

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

in the

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

department of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and a leading researcher in the field of

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. ...

, focusing on topics relating to physically based simulation of natural phenomena and machine learning. His techniques have been employed in many

motion picture A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...

s. He has earned recognition at the

80th Academy Awards The 80th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2007. The award ceremony took place on February 24, 2008, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During t ...

and the

87th Academy Awards The 87th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2014 and took place on February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, beginning at 5:30 ...

as well as from the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. His first Academy Award was awarded for developing techniques that enabled many technically sophisticated adaptations including the visual effects in 21st century movies in the

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven Fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...

, Terminator, and

Pirates of the Caribbean ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' is a Disney media franchise encompassing numerous theme park rides, a series of films, and spin-off novels, as well as a number of related video games and other media publications. The franchise originated with Wa ...

franchises Franchise may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Media franchise, a collection of related creative works, such as films, video games, books, etc., particularly in North American usage * "Franchise" (short story), a 1955 short story ...

. Fedkiw has designed a

platform Platform may refer to: Arts * Platform, an arts centre at The Bridge, Easterhouse, Glasgow * ''Platform'' (1993 film), a 1993 Bollywood action film * ''Platform'' (2000 film), a 2000 film by Jia Zhangke * '' The Platform'' (2019 film) * Pla ...

that has been used to create many of the movie world's most advanced special effects since it was first used on the

T-X The T-X (referred to as the Terminatrix in some appearances until other terminatrix (female terminators) appeared) is the name of a fictional cyborg Assassination, assassin who appears in the Terminator (franchise), ''Terminator'' franchise. Th ...

character in '' Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines''. His second Academy Award was awarded for computer graphics techniques for special effects for large scale destruction. Although he has won an Oscar for his work, he does not design the

visual effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action fo ...

that use his technique. Instead, he has developed a system that other award-winning technicians and engineers have used to create visual effects for some of the world's most expensive and highest- grossing movies.

Early life and family

Fedkiw was born in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, in 1968. He received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...

from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

in 1996. His dissertation was chaired by

Stanley Osher Stanley Osher (born April 24, 1942) is an American mathematician, known for his many contributions in shock capturing, level-set methods, and PDE-based methods in computer vision and image processing. Osher is a professor at the University of ...

. He completed postdoctoral studies both at UCLA in Mathematics and at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

Aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design process, design, and manufacturing of air flight-capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. While the term originally referred ...

before joining the

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

Computer Science Department. Fedkiw has two daughters: Brittany and Briana.

Career

Fedkiw began working in the movie industry in 1998, working for a company that produced 3-D water simulations. The algorithms they used were known as Navier-Stokes equations. Fedkiw is now a full professor in the department of

at Stanford where he researches

computational physics Computational physics is the study and implementation of numerical analysis to solve problems in physics. Historically, computational physics was the first application of modern computers in science, and is now a subset of computational science ...

. Fedkiw serves on the editorial boards of ''

Journal of Computational Physics The ''Journal of Computational Physics'' is a bimonthly scientific journal covering computational physics that was established in 1966 and is published by Elsevier. As of 2015, its editor-in-chief is Rémi Abgrall (University of Zurich). According ...

'' and the ''Journal of Scientific Computing''. He has published ''Level Set Methods and Dynamic Implicit Surfaces'' (Springer 2002, ) along with

. Since 2000, Fedkiw has been a consultant with

Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American Film, motion picture visual effects, computer animation and stereo conversion digital studio founded by George Lucas on May 26, 1975. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lu ...

receiving screen credits for work on ''Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines'', '' Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith'' and ''

Poseidon Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...

''. In addition, he has worked on all three Pirates of the Caribbean and some Harry Potter movies. Fedkiw's techniques have made possible the renderings of the sea in the Pirates movies and the dragon's flaming breath in ''

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the fourth novel in the ''Harry Potter'' series. It follows Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, a wizard in his fourth year at Hogwar ...

''. They have also made possible the rushing floodwaters in ''

Evan Almighty ''Evan Almighty'' is a 2007 American fantasy comedy film that is a spin-off and sequel of '' Bruce Almighty'' (2003). The film was directed by Tom Shadyac, written by Steve Oedekerk, based on the characters created by Steve Koren and Mark ...

'' and were first used with T-X in ''Terminator 3''. Fedkiw feels the best result of the use of his techniques was the sinking ship shots in ''Poseidon''. '' Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'' won the

Academy Award for Visual Effects The Academy Award for Best Visual Effects is presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for the best achievement in visual effects. It has been handed to four members of the team directly responsible for creatin ...

at the

79th Academy Awards The 79th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2006 and took place February 25, 2007, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m ...

awarded on February 25, 2007, and ''Poseidon'' was also nominated that year in that category. Among the applications that Fedkiw's math engine is responsible for is the

tentacle In zoology, a tentacle is a flexible, mobile, and elongated organ present in some species of animals, most of them invertebrates. In animal anatomy, tentacles usually occur in one or more pairs. Anatomically, the tentacles of animals work main ...

s of Davy Jones (pictured left) in the Academy Award-winning ''Dead Man's Chest''. On February 9, 2008, in the

Academy Scientific and Technical Award The Scientific and Technical Awards are three different Honorary Awards that are given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) during the annual Academy Awards season. The Awards have been presented since the 4th Academy Awards ...

ceremony at the

Beverly Wilshire Hotel The Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, commonly known as the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, is a historic luxury hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Located at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, it was completed in 1928. It ha ...

Beverly Hills, California Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hills ...

, Fedkiw was awarded an 80th Academy Award for Technical Achievement for the development of the Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) fluid simulation system. He shared the award with Nick Rasmussen and Frank Losasso Petterson. Fedkiw does physics-based simulation that enable better water effects. Previous representations had varying levels of success. They often did well at surface representation, but were less efficient at smaller particles such as breaking waves. Fedkiw's team's innovative "particle level set method" allows both smooth surfaces and water breakdown renderings including water spray. Fedkiw has worked with

Pixar Animation Studios Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney S ...

Intel Corporation Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer components such as central processing ...

Honda commonly known as just Honda, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate automotive manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in October 1946 by Soichiro Honda, Honda has bee ...

and

Sony Pictures Imageworks Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc. (simply known as Imageworks) is a visual effects and computer animation studio headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia and Montreal, Quebec, with an additional office on the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver C ...

. Fedkiw commented that when he was informed that he would be presented his award by

Jessica Alba Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her acting career at age 13 in ''Camp Nowhere'', followed up by ''The Secret World of Alex Mack'' (both 1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as ...

he was quoted by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

as follows: "They said I got 60 seconds so I might just spend the last 15 realizing I'm 10 feet away from the most beautiful woman on the planet . . . and no restraining order this time.". On February 7, 2015, he received a second

for the development of the ILM PhysBAM Destruction System. Fedkiw and his colleagues have designed a C++ code library for Physics Based Modelling (PhysBAM http://physbam.stanford.edu) that facilitates the creation of better special effects for movies, including water, smoke, fire, cloth, rigid bodies and deformable bodies. Fedkiw often receives screen credit for consulting with special effects engineers, technicians and movie executives. His research has focused on the design of new computational

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

s that can be used for many purposes, including

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid dynamics, fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required ...

and

soft-body dynamics Soft-body dynamics is a field of computer graphics that focuses on visually realistic physical simulations of the motion and properties of deformable objects (or ''soft bodies''). The applications are mostly in video games and films. Unlike in sim ...

computer vision Computer vision tasks include methods for image sensor, acquiring, Image processing, processing, Image analysis, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical ...

and computational

biomechanics Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems, at any level from whole organisms to Organ (anatomy), organs, Cell (biology), cells and cell organelles, using the methods of mechani ...

. In fact, the system can also be used for a range of applications from

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mocap or mo-cap, for short) is the process of recording high-resolution motion (physics), movement of objects or people into a computer system. It is used in Military science, military, entertainment, sports ...

to rendering, but Fedkiw's main emphasis is on physics-based

simulation A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in ...

. Fedkiw has described his work as follows:

It is an exhaustive task to prescribe the motion of every degree of freedom in a piece of clothing or a crashing wave. . .Since these motions are governed by physical processes, it can be difficult to make these phenomena appear natural. Thus, physically based simulation has become quite popular in the special effects industry. The same class of tools useful for computational fluid dynamics is also useful for sinking a ship on the big screen.

Awards

* Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers *

: Award for Initiatives in Research *

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 ...

: Significant New Researcher Award (2005) * Academy Award: Scientific and Technical Award (2015)"The PhysBam Destruction System"
/ref>

Book

* S. Osher and R. Fedkiw, ''Level Set Methods and Dynamic Implicit Surfaces'', Springer-Verlag, New York (2002).

Notes

External links