This year, James McCrae is the recipient of the Alain Fournier Ph.D. Dissertation Award. His dissertation, entitled Planar Section Representations of 3D Shape, made several outstanding research and commercialized contributions to 3D shape modeling, perception, and fabrication. He brings a deep scientific understanding to 3D arrangements of planar sections, previously used adhoc in art and engineering, which is timely given its applications to manufactured real materials from laser cutters and CNC routers. It is a great example of multidisciplinary research covering domains of computer graphics, shape perception, and human-computer interactions, as illustrated by his numerous publications in the top venues of these disciplines.

He has co-authored several journal and conference papers, including three papers at ACM Trans. on Graphics (SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia), two papers at Sketch-based Interfaces and Modeling (one as best paper), one paper at ACM Trans. on Applied Perception, and several papers at various diversified conferences, including User Interface and Technology (best talk), Interactive 3D Graphics and Games, and Graphics Interface. He has already served on the program committees of the conferences Shape Modeling International, and Symposium on Applied Perception, and served regularly as referee on many publication forums. Finally, he has co-founded two companies, and filed four patents.

James completed his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Computer Science, all at the University of Toronto. Professor Karan Singh was his advisor for both his M.Sc. and Ph.D.

The “Alain Fournier Memorial Fund” was created to celebrate Alain’s life, to commemorate his accomplishments, and to honour his memory. It rewards an exceptional computer graphics Ph.D. dissertation defended in a Canadian University over the previous year. The winning dissertation is selected through a juried process by a selection committee consisting of accomplished researchers in computer graphics.