I am a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the AAIA, and an ACM
Distinguished Engineer. I was a Software Architect at Apple where I
worked on the Siri virtual assistant, and before that I was Co-Founder
& CTO of PullString Inc. and Founder & CEO of Code Reddy Inc.
I have led software engineering teams at Pixar, Linden Lab, and SRI
International. I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science, am the author of
over 40 published articles, 10 patents, and I have written 2 computer
science text books. I was awarded Alumnus of the Year by Strathclyde
University in 2019.
Career
Apple Inc.
As a senior engineering leader
within the Siri organization, I was responsible for the architecture
and design of major components of Apple's virtual assistant. I have
worked on improvements to Siri that have been deployed to around 1
billion devices across 40 locales. This includes features that run on
iPhones and Macs through HomePods, Apple Watches, and CarPlay units.
I was Co-Founder and CTO of
PullString, Inc. for 8 years. PullString was a Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS) company providing a platform to create conversation experiences
and apps on various voice platforms such as Amazon Alexa and Google
Assistant. We provided conversational AI and dialog management
solutions as well as a powerful authoring environment to design, test,
and deploy voice applications. PullString was acquired by Apple in 2019.
I was the Founder and CEO of
the technology consultancy Code Reddy Inc. Through this position I
provided software design and development services for various
technology clients, including Linden Lab, Weidlinger
Associates, and Planet 9 Studios. My work for Linden Lab involved
improvements to the Second Life client, an online 3D virtual world
used by over 20 million people worldwide.
Bakery Animation Studio
I was an Engineering
Manager at The Bakery, a startup animation studio in the south of
France. In this role I had responsibility for architecting and
designing the studio's 3D animation software, as well as managing the
team of engineers tasked with implementing the software.
Pixar Animation Studios
I was a Lead
Engineer in Pixar's R&D department for 6 years. In this role I
was responsible for managing a team of engineers designing and
implementing Pixar's in-house film-making software system,
Marionette. My work was used on the films: Finding Nemo, Cars,
The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and WALL-E. My head
was also used as a model for Mr. Incredible.
I worked at SRI
International for 5 years as a Research Engineer. My primary project
was a distributed 3D terrain visualization system called
TerraVision. This effort also involved international standards-based
work as chair of the GeoVRML working group (I was the author of all
the geospatial nodes in the VRML and X3D ISO standards), and work on
a scheme to index all geospatial information on the Internet, referred
to as the GeoWeb.
I wrote a
book called API Design for C++, published by Elsevier/Morgan
Kaufmann in 2011. A greatly expanded Second Edition was released
in 2024. This book focuses on how to design robust and
elegant Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) with a focus on the
C++ language. The accompanying web site provides working source
code examples from the text.
I
co-authored the book Level of Detail for 3D Graphics, published
by Morgan Kaufmann in 2001. The book covers the topic of creating and
managing multiresolution models for real-time 3D graphics
applications. The accompanying web site provides links to related LOD
resources on the Web.
I gained my Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in 1997. My
research involved applying models of visual perception to real-time 3D
graphics systems. The goal of this work was to remove imperceptible
details in order to improve the frame rate of graphics systems.
I have published a large
number of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers,
including articles in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
and courses at the annual SIGGRAPH conference. I have also
given various invited talks, such as the Keynote Address at the
Web3D conference. My first publication was in Your
Commodore magazine when I was 16 years old.
My feature film credits
include Finding Nemo, Cars, The Incredibles,
Ratatouille, and WALL-E. In addition, I've worked on
technology that was used in many of Pixar's short films. You can
view my entire filmography on the IMDB web site.
You can find out more
about my professional experience on my LinkedIn page. This includes
more detail on my technical skill sets and recommendations from
several colleagues I've worked with in the past.
