Rate My Professor Jim Kajiya

Continuing his influential career, Kajiya published on hierarchical bounding boxes for ray tracing acceleration, algebraic geometry for patch computations, rendering fuzzy surfaces, and three-dimensional textures for fur (1989, earning a 1997 Academy Award with Timothy Kay). In 1994, he moved to Microsoft Research as a senior researcher, building and leading the graphics group, serving as principal architect for the Talisman project, and becoming Distinguished Engineer and director of research in 1997. He contributed to FISC-1 and FISC-2 machines with TRW and a joint IBM project. Kajiya received the SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award in 1991, the Steven Anson Coons Award in 2011, and induction into the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy in 2018. He served as technical program chair for SIGGRAPH 1993, on the SIGGRAPH executive committee, and various national advisory boards including the Defense Mapping Agency and National Academy of Sciences committees. Now a researcher emeritus at Microsoft Research, he founded Tolt Machine Works in 2010. Kajiya's work, particularly the rendering equation, has had lasting impact on computer graphics, foundational to modern physically-based rendering.