Co-author of over 50 technical publications, including more than ten in SIGGRAPH/SIGGRAPH Asia/ACM Transactions on Graphics (ToG).
Awarded over $2.2 million in research funding, including an NSF CAREER Award in 2009.
Best Paper Award at the Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA) in 2016.
Best Paper Finalist at High Performance Graphics (HPG) and Outstanding Reviewer Award at CVPR in 2015.
Led the University of New Mexico (UNM) videogame development program ranked top 10 by The Princeton Review in 2012; received UNM ECE Distinguished Researcher Award the same year.
NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship and SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Graphics Hardware Conference Best Paper Award in 2004.
SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Graphics Hardware Conference Best Paper Award in 2002.
Background
Mexican-American born in a small petroleum town in Northern Mexico; moved to Mexico City as a child and later immigrated with his family to South Bend, Indiana, USA.
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), member of the MIRAGE Lab, and Director of the UCSB Gaucho Game Lab.
Research interests include image synthesis algorithms, computational image processing, and computational photography.
Passionate about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and actively involved in related campus initiatives.
Currently resides in Goleta, California, with his wife and two children.