Daniel Thalmann receives the Eurographics Distinguished Career Award 2010 for his pioneering research on Virtual Humans, his leadership in establishing the VRLab at EPFL as a world class research center, and his continued and successful role in training young researchers in Computer Graphics.
Daniel Thalmann is Full Professor and Director of The Virtual Reality Lab at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, since 1988. He received a Diploma in Physics, a Certificate in Statistics and Computer science, and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Geneva and an Honorary Doctorate from the University Paul-Sabatier in Toulouse, France. He has been Professor at the University of Montreal, Canada, and Visiting Professor/Researcher at CERN, University of Nebraska, University of Tokyo, and Institute of System Science in Singapore.
Daniel Thalmann’s research interests include real-time virtual humans in virtual reality, networked virtual environments, artificial life, and multimedia and he has established a highly impressive publication record. From his numerous scientific contributions only few can be mentioned here: animated synthetic actors, global human walking models, behavioral models for crowds, efficient collision detection, and synergy of interaction and narration through social channels.
He has given numerous talks and lectures worldwide and he has graduated more than 40 PhD students. He has also organized multiple SIGGRAPH and Eurographics courses on human animation and crowd simulation. Moreover, he was co-director of several computer-generated films with synthetic actors including a synthetic Marilyn shown on numerous TV channels all over the world.
Through his highly influential work and his widespread international activities, Daniel Thalmann has significantly advanced computer graphics research in Europe, and Eurographics is pleased to recognize Daniel Thalmann with its 2010 Distinguished Career Award.