Keynote Presentations

Aaron Hertzmann is a principal scientist at Adobe Research and affiliate faculty at University of Washington. He received a bachelor’s degree in art and art history and computer science at Rice University and a Ph.D. degree in computer science from New York University. He was a professor at the University of Toronto for 10 years. He has published over 125 papers in computer graphics, “AI”, and art. He is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow, and winner of the 2024 ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award.

Sanja Fidler is vice president of AI research at NVIDIA, leading the company’s Spatial Intelligence Lab. She is also an associate professor at the University of Toronto, and an affiliate faculty member at the Vector Institute, which she co-founded. Fidler co-authored over 130 scientific papers in the fields of computer vision, machine learning and NLP. She has served as Area Chair for a variety of conferences, including the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), International Conference in Computer Vision (ICCV), the Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP), the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), and SIGGRAPH.

Fidler has received the NVIDIA Pioneer of AI Award, Amazon Academic Research Award, Facebook Faculty Award, Early Researcher Award, University of Toronto’s Innovation Award, and the Connaught New Researcher Award. In 2018, she was appointed as the Canadian CIFAR AI Chair. She has also been ranked among the top three most influential AI female researchers in Canada by Re-WORK, was named in Globe and Mail’s Changemakers in 2025, and was listed in the top people in AI in 2023 by the Business Insider. With her co-workers, she received the Best Paper Honorable Mention award at CVPR’17, SIGGRAPH 2023, and Best Paper Award at SIGGRAPH Asia 2023. Her main research interests are in spatial intelligence: 3D content creation, spatial understanding, and simulation for robotics.

Aaron Lefohn is vice president of graphics research at NVIDIA, overseeing teams focused on rendering, AI graphics, and graphics systems. His teams’ inventions have played key roles in bringing path tracing to real-time graphics and pioneering real-time AI computer graphics. Recent NVIDIA products derived from his teams’ inventions include DLSS, RTX Path Tracing, RTX Dynamic Illumination, Neural Shading, the Slang shading language, and more.

Aaron has led real-time rendering and graphics programming model research teams for over 15 years and has productized many inventions into games, professional graphics software, GPU hardware, and GPU graphics APIs.

Aaron holds a Ph.D. in computer science from UC Davis and an M.S. in computer science from the University of Utah.

Ming-Yu Liu is a vice president of research at NVIDIA and a fellow of IEEE. He leads the Deep Imagination Research group at NVIDIA, which currently focuses on Generative AI for Physical AI. His research team has helped create several new product categories for NVIDIA, including NVIDIA Cosmos, a developer-first world foundation model platform for Physical AI; NVIDIA Edify, a family of Generative AI models that powers Getty Images and Shutterstock’s GenAI services; NVIDIA Canvas [GauGAN], a real-time painting tool that uses GANs to turn simple brushstrokes into photorealistic images; and NVIDIA Maxine [LivePortrait], an AI-first cloud-native video streaming platform. His research group publishes scientific papers in top-tier AI conferences regularly, including NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, and SIGGRAPH. Several of their papers have received prestigious awards.

Dr. Anjali Tripathi is an astrophysicist, who has served as NASA’s inaugural Exoplanet Science Ambassador. As an expert in planet formation and evolution, she has contributed to the design of new space missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Dr. Tripathi is a leading science communicator, regularly featured by the BBC, PBS, and TED, and a film and television consultant for the National Academy of Sciences. She has served on the NASA Sea Level Change Team, been a Research Associate of the Smithsonian, and led data visualization for the L.A. County Department of Public Health COVID Data and Epidemiology Team. She previously led science policy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She earned degrees in physics and astrophysics from Harvard, Cambridge, and MIT.

David S. Goyer has garnered acclaim for his skill in crafting character-driven narratives set within the realms of superheroes and speculative fiction. His breakthrough came in 1998 with the cult hit “Dark City”, as well as “Blade”, featuring Wesley Snipes, and an adaptation of the Marvel Comics vampire hunter. Since then, he has established himself as a versatile writer, director, and producer known for his adept handling of genre-driven stories.

Presently, Goyer serves as the executive producer and showrunner for “Foundation” on Apple TV+, a series based on Isaac Asimov’s iconic novels. He also exec produces “Murderbot” for Apple TV+, adapted from the books by Martha Wells. Additionally, Goyer co-wrote the pilot and serves as executive producer for Netflix’s “The Sandman”, which is currently streaming its second season. His prior television credits include “Da Vinci’s Demons”, “Constantine”, “Krypton”, and the cult classic “FlashForward”.

In film, Goyer and his production company, Phantom Four Films, released “The First Omen”, a prequel to the beloved 1976 classic film “The Omen”, in 2024. They have also announced a reimagining of “The Blob”, with David Bruckner set to direct. Phantom Four and Bruckner previously collaborated on hits such as “The Night House”, starring Rebecca Hall, and “Hellraiser”. Other notable Phantom Four films include “Antlers” and “The Tomorrow War”.

Goyer has previously collaborated with Christopher Nolan, writing the screenplay for “Man of Steel” and co-writing on “The Dark Knight” trilogy. Additionally, he co-wrote “Terminator: Dark Fate”.

In 2002, Goyer made his feature film directorial debut with the drama “ZigZag”, for which he also wrote the screenplay. His other film credits include “The Invisible”, “The Unborn”, “Blade: Trinity”, as well as multiple episodes of “Foundation”.

Goyer has also ventured into the realm of video games, contributing the story for the acclaimed “Call of Duty: Black Ops” and various sequels. He has also written and executive-produced the groundbreaking VR series “Vader Immortal” for Lucasfilm and Oculus. Recently, Goyer created and serves as creative director for the block-chain franchise Emergence, built on the Incention and Story platforms.

Tye Sheridan is an actor, producer and co-founder of Wonder Dynamics, an Autodesk Company. Sheridan has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most exciting leading men, making his on-screen film debut in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2011 Cannes Film festival. Since then, Sheridan has amassed an impressive resume of intense, nuanced, and thoughtful characters, alongside some of the most creative filmmakers of our time, including Steven Spielberg (“Ready Player One”), Paul Schrader, George Clooney, Jeff Nichols, and David Gordon Green. His company Wonder Dynamics was acquired by Autodesk in 2024, expanding access to the industry-leading technology that empowers storytellers to produce studio-level films with VFX and CGI on an indie budget.

Nikola Todorovic is the co-founder of Wonder Dynamics, an Autodesk Company. As an entrepreneur, visual effects supervisor, and award-winning filmmaker, Nikola spent most of his career working at the intersection of film and technology. This ultimately led him to dream up Wonder Dynamics with fellow co-founder and actor/producer Tye Sheridan. Together, they created the company’s proprietary AI software, Autodesk Flow Studio (formerly Wonder Studio), a cloud-based 3D animation and VFX platform that combines artificial intelligence (AI) with established tools, helping artists more easily animate, light, and compose 3D characters within live-action scenes.

Carolyn Giardina is an award-winning journalist and author who has devoted her career to covering the art and science of entertainment. Having held editorial roles at publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and SHOOT, her authoritative coverage has spanned entertainment technology and the creative arts including VFX and cinematography. She’s covered key industry inflection points such as the DTV and digital cinema transitions and continues to examine the impact of emerging technology. She’s been recognized with American Cinema Editors’ Robert Wise Award, for journalistic contributions to film editing; International Cinematographers Guild’s Technicolor William A. Fraker Award, for journalistic contributions to cinematography; Women in Technology Hollywood’s Leadership Award; and Advanced Imaging Society’s Distinguished Leadership Award. Additionally, Carolyn is a lecturer at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film & Media Arts and co-authored a book about stereoscopic 3D filmmaking, “Exploring 3D” (Focal Press, 2012). Carolyn is an established conference speaker/moderator who has conducted panels and interviews for organizations including SIGGRAPH, Visual Effects Society, SMPTE, IBC, NAB, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Mike Haley serves as senior vice president of research at Autodesk. In this role, he leads the company’s industrial research that uncovers new technologies for customer-centric transformations while addressing challenges like climate change, automation, and industry convergence.

The Autodesk Research team encompasses scientific research (AI, human-computer interaction, simulation and systems, optimization, geometry, visualization, and robotics), industry research (design, manufacturing, architecture, infrastructure, construction, and media), and strategic foresight. Mike also oversees the Autodesk Technology Centers, working with customers and partners on the future of design and make. This multidisciplinary, integrated approach guides the company’s technology, strategy, and product development. Mike also leads Autodesk’s generative AI efforts.

Mike’s track record includes establishing the company’s AI Lab, driving machine learning competency, and pioneering cloud technology at Autodesk. He holds an MS in computer science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and has expertise in computer graphics, machine learning, distributed systems, and mathematical analysis.

Maurice Patel is the VP of media & entertainment strategy (M&E) for Autodesk’s M&E business. Since 1996, Maurice has helped technology companies develop software for creative professionals in the media and entertainment industry. Over his time in Autodesk, Maurice has overseen the product marketing of 3ds Max, Maya, and MotionBuilder, among other products, and has acted as an industry expert interfacing with various customers and leads. He has led teams across Autodesk’s business strategy and marketing segments for M&E. Currently Maurice is helping drive the media and entertainment solutions group strategy. His mission is to aid the group orient its projects and its strategy for film, video games, and television.