Dr. Tom Sederberg from the BYU Computer Science Department was recently awarded the 2008 John Gregory Memorial Award in Geometric Design. Remarking on the honor, Dr. Sederberg said, “it was an unexpected surprise; a very pleasant surprise.”
The award presentation took place as part of the Geometric Modeling seminar held at Germany’s Dagstuhl Castle in May. The Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics is the world’s premier venue for informatics. The Center was created to bring together interdisciplinary researchers from around the globe. Scientists in a number of fields relating to informatics participate in the world-renowned, invitation-only Dagstuhl Seminars and explore cutting-edge research in computer science. Named after an early pioneer in the field of Geometric Design, the John Gregory Memorial Award, given out only every three, is the highest honor afforded at the Geometric Modeling Seminar and one of the only awards of its kind in the world.
Dr. Sederberg received the award in recognition of significant contributions to the field of computer-aided geometric design, where he has pursued cutting edge research in polynomial and spline algorithms, root finding using Bernstein polynomials, surface-surface intersection, freeform deformations and T-splines, which allow artists and designers to add detail and merge models in previously impossible ways. His research at BYU led him to the creation of T-Splines, Inc., a company which makes T-splines available to the industry. Dr. Sederberg is recognized worldwide for his research in computer aided geometric design, computer graphics, computational algebra, and algorithmic algebraic geometry. He has published prolifically; 11 of his papers have been accepted by SIGGRAPH, the foremost computer graphics association in the United States. In 2006, he received the ACM-SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award in recognition of his achievements in this field.
Dr. Ron Goldman of Rice University, one of Dr. Sederberg’s mentors during his time at Purdue, introduced Dr. Sederberg at the Dagstuhl Conference. In addition to acknowledging Dr. Sederberg’s accomplishments in the field of computer science, Dr. Goldman remarked, “Tom is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He is friendly, warmhearted, accessible, calm, and tireless, as well as a devoted husband and father.”