James

Doug James, associate professor of computer science, will receive the 2013 Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize. The award, presented by Carnegie Mellon University in cooperation with the Tokyo University of Technology (TUT), honors a researcher who demonstrates leadership promise in the field. It includes a $5,000 honorarium.

James’ research focuses on computer graphics and the synthesis of sounds to accompany computer-generated images. He is an Academy Award recipient, sharing the 2012 Technical Achievement Award for his role in developing Wavelet Turbulence software, which rapidly generates realistic swirling smoke and fiery explosive effects and has been used in more than two dozen movies.

The award is endowed by Japanese entrepreneur and education advocate Koh Katayanagi, who founded TUT and several other technical institutions in Japan. It will be presented Sept. 12 at Carnegie-Mellon, where James will deliver a lecture, “Physics-based Computing for the Senses.”

James also is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a 2006 Sloan Research Fellowship and a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship. Popular Science named him one of its “Brilliant 10” young scientists in 2005.

The 2009 Katayanagi Emerging Leadership Prize was awarded to Jon Kleinberg, the Tisch University Professor of Computer Science.