Michael Neff

A lifelong interest in art, science and technology has led me to a position that blends the three. As an undergraduate, I was a member of the first class of the Engineering and Society Program at McMaster University. It allowed me to combine a computer engineering degree with a drama minor and studies on the social and environmental impacts of technology. I completed both a Masters and a PhD (2005) as a member of the Dynamic Graphics Project, the computer graphics and interaction research group in the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto. My initial research focused on modeling natural phenomena and during my Ph.D., I concentrated on character animation. I also spent time teaching in rural Kenya, spawning enduring interests in Africa and development. After graduate school, I spent a year as a post-doctoral fellow with the computer graphics research group at the Max Planck Institut für Informatik in Saarbrücken, Germany, before assuming my position at Davis, cross-appointed to Computer Science and Technocultural Studies.