Karol Myszkowski is a tenured senior researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken. He received his PhD in computer science in 1991 from Warsaw University of Technology. He was a faculty member at Szczecin University of Technology and worked for Integra Inc., a Japan-based company developing global illumination software before becoming an associate professor at the University of Aizu. In 2011 he was awarded a lifetime professor title by the President of Poland.
For decades, Karol has helped to shape how we understand, model, and visualize the world. His research bridges the gap between graphics and perception with exceptional elegance and technical soundness, defining standards of excellence in many fields. He was a co-author of High dynamic range imaging: acquisition, display, and image-based lighting, the seminal book that quickly became a cornerstone reference for researchers, students, and practitioners alike, in a topic that soon became foundational in the field.
But his contributions go well beyond HDR imaging. Karol is well-known for his work on image quality analyses and metrics, perceptually-driven and gaze-contingent rendering, stereoscopic imaging, material appearance and, more recently, virtual reality, to name just a few. His contributions in these and other fields have made him one of the most relevant researchers in Europe.
Throughout his career, Karol has shown how to break down difficult perceptual aspects of human vision into useful models that can be directly applied to computer graphics problems. For instance, his pioneering work in tone mapping, rendering, or perceptual image quality has helped to reshape the way computational resources are allocated to produce images where errors fall below the threshold of human perception. A key question in his work has always been: which aspects of the image generation process truly matter to the viewer?
Apart from publishing high-impact papers in top tier venues, Karol has always been a very active member of the computer graphics community. He was Chair of the SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers Program in 2020, and has served in many other committees and editorial boards. In addition, he has always been an excellent mentor for young researchers, and a role model in all aspects of research.
EUROGRAPHICS is extremely pleased to recognize Karol Myszkowski with the 2026 Outstanding Technical Contributions Award.