About Chris Wyman

Hello, again. My homepage didn't have enough about me, and you've decided you just must read more? Luckily for you, I finally updated this page and will no longer redirect you to the information on my ancient grad school page.

I'm currently an Assistant Professor in the University of Iowa's Department of Computer Science, where I have been gainfully employed since August 2004. My speciality is computer graphics, and in particular techniques for creating photorealism images, interactive rendering, and interactive global illumination. I've done a few interesting things in these areas, and I hope to do a few more in the future. If you're an undergraduate or graduate student looking to work in graphics, feel free to e-mail me, and we can set up a meeting to chat.

Before moving to Iowa, I spent five years studying at the University of Utah's School of Computing under the supervision of Chuck Hansen. The title of my dissertation was Fast Local Approximation to Global Illumination, which I successfully defended on May 10, 2004. However, due to bureaucratic red tape (which is why the cover of my thesis is red), I didn't officially graduate until August 2004. Other members of my supervisory committee included Pete Shirley, Steve Parker, Vicki Interrante, and Elaine Cohen.

Before moving out to Utah, I grew up in the midwestern city of Minneapolis, where I also studied at the University of Minnesota. I escaped with degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science, after learning about the joys of teaching students Scheme and graphics and spending some time working with Maria Gini in her robotics lab. I was recently reminded of (what now is a very embarrassing and naive-looking) writeup I wrote while working as a teaching assistant. As much as I cannot stand reading it anymore, someone must still find it useful, since it keeps popping up on class web pages more than a decade after I wrote it!

Outside the academic arena that later became my career, I've done a few other things I consider interesting. In particular, I play the trumpet and still try (being the operative word) to keep in shape playing with the Iowa City Community Band. Back when I was more proficient, I participated in groups including the University of Minnesota Marching Band and Hockey Band, the University of Utah Marching Band and Pep Band, the 2002 Winter Olympic Spirit Band, the Medalist Concert Band, and various other ensembles. Notice, however, that I haven't given up my day job.

I also enjoy a variety of other things including travelling and photography (can you tell from the rest of my web page?), biking, hiking, reading, games, computer games, cooking, and the rest of life. Sometimes I even get a chance to partake of these activities. Furthermore, now that I own a house I have a myriad of issues to deal with there, from mowing to gardening to keeping the dust bunnies from escaping.

I also have been involved with various other programs and organizations over the years that have shaped me or have otherwise proven beneficial:

• Professional organizations to which I belong, such as ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE, IEEE Computer Society, and Eurographics.
• Honor societies, such as Tau Beta Pi and Golden Key.
• Honorary fraternaties such as Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma.
• The Summer Science Program, where I was a student in 1994, a teaching assistant in 1998, 1999, and 2001, and a guest speaker in 2004.
  • Incidentally, I'm rather proud that they're still using my photo of the telescope on their webpage.
• HSHSP, where I was a student in 1995.
• UMTYMP, where I took math courses from 1990-1996.

And because I'm running out of things to say, I figure the following images are worth at least 11,000 more words describing the past decade of my life:

Last Modified: Saturday, June 10, 2006

Chris Wyman (cwyman@cs.uiowa.edu)