{{Short description|American computer scientist (born 1972)}} {{Infobox scientist |name = Maneesh Agrawala |image = |image_size = |alt = |birth_date = |birth_place = |death_date = |death_place = |residence = |citizenship = |ethnicity = |fields = Computer scientist |workplaces = Berkeley, Stanford |alma_mater = Stanford University |doctoral_advisor = Pat Hanrahan |academic_advisors = |awards = MacArthur Fellowship (2009) |signature = <!--(filename only)--> |signature_alt = |footnotes = |father = Ashok Agrawala }}
'''Maneesh Agrawala''' (born 1972) is a professor of computer science at Stanford University. He returned to Stanford in 2015 as the director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, after nearly a decade on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.<ref>{{cite news|title=UC-Berkeley Professor Named Next Director of Brown Institute|url=http://engineering.stanford.edu/news/berkeley-professor-named-next-director-brown-institute|date=4 March 2015}}</ref>
==Life and work== Maneesh Agrawala was born to computer-science professor Ashok Agrawala from the University of Maryland.<ref>{{cite web |title=Celebrating Ashok Agrawala's 50th Anniversary at UMD |url=https://www.cs.umd.edu/ashok50 |website=UMD Department of Computer Science |access-date=7 August 2023}}</ref> He attended the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD, where he was part of a team (including Howard Gobioff) that won a supercomputer in the 1988 SuperQuest competition.<ref>{{cite web|last=Deng|first=Sophia|title=Blair alumnus named MacArthur Fellow|url=http://silverchips.mbhs.edu/story/9499|work=Silver Chips Online|date=1 October 2009|accessdate=18 October 2013}}</ref> He was a finalist in the 1990 Westinghouse Science Talent Search.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bates |first1=Steve |title=Science's Brightest Young Stars: Six Area Students Make Finals of Prestigious Contest |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=January 26, 1990 |page=C1}}</ref>
He received a B.S. in mathematics in 1994 and a Ph.D. in computer science in 2002, both from Stanford University. While attending Stanford, he worked as a software consultant at Vicinity Corporation and in the rendering software group at Pixar Animation Studios. He received a film credit for Pixar's A Bug's Life.<ref>{{Cite web |url= https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120623/fullcredits |title=A Bug's Life (1998) - Full cast and crew |work=imdb.com |accessdate=28 February 2010 }}</ref> After graduating, Agrawala worked at Microsoft Research for three years, before joining the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.<ref name='mcar'>{{cite web |url=http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.5458001/k.92B8/Maneesh_Agrawala.htm |title=Maneesh Agrawala |accessdate=2010-02-27 |publisher=John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation }}</ref>
Agrawala's work focuses on the design of visual interfaces that help a user process digital information, often using cognitive design concepts. For instance, LineDrive, a program developed by Agrawala, creates route maps that resemble hand-drawn maps, adapting cognitive and map-making techniques to help a computer user process information on a route. This work was the focus of his 2002 Ph.D. dissertation, "Visualizing Route Maps". He has also adapted cognitive science into visual interfaces for complex 3D models. Agrawala has also developed a system that creates step-by-step assembly instructions for complex machines, using the idea of exploded views to help the user understand the spatial relationships between elements. His user-centric approach is viewed as having broad applicability in the fields of computer graphics and user interfaces.<ref>{{cite web |last=Sanders |first=Robert |url=http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/09/21_genius.shtml |title=UC Berkeley Press Release |publisher=Berkeley.edu |date=2009-09-22 |accessdate=2010-02-28}}</ref>
Agrawala is the recipient of multiple awards, including an Okawa Foundation Research Grant in 2006, a Sloan Fellowship and NSF CAREER Award in 2007, a SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award in 2008, and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2009.<ref name='sigg'>[http://www.siggraph.org/newsfeed2009/maneesh-agrawala-awarded-the-2009-macarthur-fellow-genius-grant/ Maneesh Agrawala awarded the 2009 MacArthur Fellow "Genius" Grant] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091015171326/http://www.siggraph.org/newsfeed2009/maneesh-agrawala-awarded-the-2009-macarthur-fellow-genius-grant/ |date=2009-10-15 }}, SIGGRAPH, September 22, 2009.</ref> He was named to the 2022 class of ACM Fellows, "for contributions to visual communication through computer graphics, human-computer interaction, and information visualization".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.acm.org/media-center/2023/january/fellows-2022|title=Global computing association names 57 fellows for outstanding contributions that propel technology today|publisher=Association for Computing Machinery|date=January 18, 2023|access-date=2023-01-18}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *{{DBLP|name=Maneesh Agrawala}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Agrawala, Maneesh}} Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:Computer vision researchers Category:Stanford University School of Engineering alumni Category:UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:Sloan Research Fellows Category:Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences alumni Category:Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Category:American academics of Indian descent