Eugene Fiume is Professor and past Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, where he co-directs the Dynamic Graphics Project and is director of the Masters of Science in Applied Computing programme. He is Principal Investigator of a $6M CFI/ORF project on the construction of a digital media and systems lab.
Following his B.Math. degree from the University of Waterloo and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto, he was an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow and Maitre Assistant at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He was awarded an NSERC University Research Fellowship in 1987 and returned to the University of Toronto to a faculty position. He was Associate Director of the Computer Systems Research Institute, and was a Visiting Professor at the University of Grenoble, France. His past board memberships include the Scientific Advisory Boards of GMD (Bonn, Germany, now Fraunhofer), and the Max-Planck Center for Visual Computing and Communication (Saarbruecken, Germany); the Boards of Directors of Truespectra Inc. (Toronto, acquired by Scene7), and CITO (Ottawa); the Advisory Boards of the Department of CSE at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, CastleHill Ventures (Toronto), PlateSpin (Toronto, acquired by Novell), BitFlash (Ottawa), TrueSpectra (Toronto), OctigaBay Systems (Vancouver, acquired by Cray Systems), View22 Technology Inc. (Richmond Hill), and NGRAIN Corporation (Vancouver); and the Executive Advisory Board of the IBM Lab in Toronto.
He currently sits on the Board of Directors of Tucows Inc. (Toronto), and is on the Board of Advisors of the Intel Science and Technology Center for Visual Computing (Santa Clara).
Eugene has participated in many task forces and reviews of research institutes around the world. He has had a long association with the computer graphics and electronic media industries in Canada and the U.S., notably with Alias|wavefront, where he was Director of Research and Usability Engineering while on leave from the university. He now works with several companies in an advisory capacity on both technological and business issues. He also works with venture capital companies on due diligence and strategy.
Eugene's research interests include most aspects of realistic computer graphics, including computer animation, modelling natural phenomena, and illumination, as well as strong interests in internet based imaging, image repositories, software systems and parallel algorithms. He has written two books and (co-)authored over 120 papers on these topics. Fourteen doctoral students and 35 masters students have graduated under his supervision. He has won two teaching awards, as well as Innovation Awards from ITRC for research in computer graphics, Burroughs-Wellcome for biomedical research, and an NSERC Synergy Award for innovation and industrial collaboration in visual modelling. He was also the papers chair for SIGGRAPH 2001, past chair of the SIGGRAPH Awards Committee (2003-2008) and the ACM Paris Kanellakis Awards Committee (2011), general co-chair of Symposium for Computer Animation 2008 and Pacific Graphics International 2011. Whenever his editor is looking over his shoulder, he even writes an illusory book on computational reality, which he might even finish some day.
His industrial interests include technology transfer in the Information Technology area, internet-based applications, digital media, wireless and multimedia systems, web-based services, large-scale computation, and the interaction of information technology and business.
On occasion, he manages to sneak a few hours of sleep.