Q&A

Ed Catmull, Pixar Animation Studios and Pixar Animation and Disney Animation
Host: Department of Computer Science

Ed Catmull will be hosting a live Q&A.

Speaker Biography

Ed Catmull, Turing Prize Award winner for his contributions to 3D graphics and CGI filmmaking.

Dr. Ed Catmull is co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and the former president of Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios. For over twenty-five years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing fourteen consecutive #1 box office hits, which have grossed more than $8.7 billion at the worldwide box office to date, and won thirty Academy Awards®.

His book Creativity, Inc.—co-written with journalist Amy Wallace and years in the making—is a distillation of the ideas and management principles Ed has used to develop a creative culture. A book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, it also grants readers an all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation Studios—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history have been made.

Dr. Catmull has been honored with five Academy Awards®, including an Oscar of Lifetime Achievement for his technical contributions and leadership in the field of computer graphics for the motion picture industry. He also has been awarded the Turing Award by the world’s largest society of computing professionals, the Association for Computing Machinery, for his work on three-dimensional computer graphics. Dr. Catmull earned B.S. degrees in computer science and physics and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Utah. In 2005, the University of Utah presented him with an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Engineering. In 2018, Catmull announced his retirement from Pixar, though he has cemented his legacy as an innovator in technology, entertainment, business, and leadership.