Chuck Hansen Receives the 2017 IEEE Visualization Career Award

Read the release from IEEE
Mike Kirby Honored Among Top Researchers at the University of Utah

SCI Alum Thiago Ize to Receive Technical Oscar

To Marcos Fajardo for the creative vision and original implementation of the Arnold Renderer, and to Chris Kulla, Alan King, Thiago Ize and Clifford Stein for their highly optimized geometry engine and novel ray-tracing algorithms which unify the rendering of curves, surfaces, volumetrics and subsurface scattering as developed at Sony Pictures Imageworks and Solid Angle SL.
http://www.oscars.org/news/18-scientific-and-technical-achievements-be-honored-academy-awards-0
Miriah Meyer Receives Distinguished Alumni Award

A reception and dinner will be held Friday, March 3rd at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Tickets for the reception are available through the University of Utah Alumni Association.
NSF Graduate Fellowships Awarded to Two SCI Students

Winner of the 2015 Teapot Rendering Competition
This image is not strictly photorealistic. Laura rendered out the image into two main layers, one for specular highlights and caustics, and one for diffuse lighting. She also has a mask for just the teapots, and one for the ground. Laura was able to split up the image and adjust the brightness of each part independently. Here she decided to include some diffuse reflection/refraction for the teapots, but mostly removed the diffuse lighting from the ground. This gave an extra glow to the teapots and also emphasized the caustics. 100,000 samples per pixel.
Miriah Meyer Receives Outstanding Teaching Award

High resolution photo courtesy of the School of Computing.
For more information and pictures from the graduation reception, visit http://www.cs.utah.edu/faculty-and-students-recognized-with-top-awards-at-graduation-reception/
Erin Linebarger Receives NSF Graduate Fellowship

The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science and engineering. The GRFP provides three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant achievements in science and engineering.
Nina McCurdy Receives NSF Graduate Fellowship

The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science and engineering. The GRFP provides three years of support for the graduate education of individuals who have demonstrated their potential for significant achievements in science and engineering.
Strong Showing for SCI Alumni at Vis 2014

See: Phys.Org "NYU professor wins premier award in the data visualization field."