Michael Gleicher

A Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Gleicher was the founder and leader of the Department's Computer Graphics group. The overall goal of his research was to create tools that make it easier to create pictures, video, animation, and virtual environments, and to make these visual artifacts more interesting, entertaining, and informative. He sought to build and apply an understanding of human perception, artistic traditions, numerical computation, and geometry.

His primary focus was on tools for character animation, for the automated production of multimedia, and visualization and geometric analysis for biological applications, particularly structural bioinformatics. Gleicher was an ACM Distinguished Scientist. He earned his MS and Ph.D. in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (1988–1994), and held a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from Duke University.

Prior to joining the university, Gleicher was a research scientist at The Autodesk Vision Technology Center (June, 1997 to July, 1998), where he conducted research on video tracking, motion capture, and editing techniques. He also worked at Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group (August, 1994 through March, 1997) on a variety of research projects involving computer animation, computer vision, and user interfaces.