Michael Kass
Michael Kass is a computer scientist known for work in computer vision and computer graphics. He co-wrote the 1987 Snakes paper with Andrew Witkin and Demetri Terzopoulos, and it is one of the most cited works in computer graphics and computer vision. He joined Pixar in 1995, and his cloth simulation work earned a share of the 2005 Academy Award for Technical Achievement. He received the 2009 SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award and was named an ACM Fellow in 2017. He is a senior distinguished engineer at NVIDIA and the overall software architect of NVIDIA Omniverse.
Timeline
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1987
The Snakes active contour model
The Snakes paper, written with Andrew Witkin and Demetri Terzopoulos, earns a Marr Prize honorable mention at the 1987 International Conference on Computer Vision. It is one of the most cited works in computer graphics and computer vision.
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1988
Research at Apple Computer
He joins Apple Computer in 1988, after earning a Stanford Ph.D. and working at Schlumberger Palo Alto Research.
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1995
A move to Pixar
He joins Pixar in 1995, and the simulation work he shares with David Baraff and Andrew Witkin begins in 1998.
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2005
An Academy Award for cloth
He shares a 2005 Academy Award for Technical Achievement with David Baraff and Andrew Witkin, for physically based cloth simulation.
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2009
A SIGGRAPH achievement award
He receives the 2009 SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award for his introduction of optimization techniques as a fundamental tool in graphics.
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2017
An ACM Fellowship
He is named an ACM Fellow and joins NVIDIA as a distinguished engineer, both in 2017.
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As of October 2026
Omniverse software architect
He is a senior distinguished engineer at NVIDIA and the overall software architect of NVIDIA Omniverse.
Sources and credits
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