About

About: I'm a Graphics Software Engineer and Visual / XR / UX Designer with ~15 years of experience in real-time graphics,
augmented and virtual reality, visual and product design. I pride myself on taking ideas from zero to one. I'm a maker who
deeply cares about craft and the details. I love rethinking how things are done and made. I often reinvent the wheel and
build things from the ground up to teach myself the fundamentals of how things really work.

Recent Highlight: I designed & coded the “Guided” AR scanning experience in Luma AI’s 3D scanning (NeRF) iOS app.
This guided experience shows users how to position and move themselves in space to successfully scan an object. This
was a collaborative & iterative process with the team. I solved various UX challenges to help ensure the process is intuitive
by giving a lot of on screen and diegetic feedback in AR. This project leveraged my deep knowledge and expertise in
Metal, Swift, SwiftUI and ARKit.

Personal Project: I’m working on a 3D modeling app for Apple platforms. Its a native app written in Swift, Metal, and uses
SwiftUI. There are tons of UX challenges involved in creating a 3D design tool that works on mobile, tablets, and desktop.
The tool uses my open source graphics engine and tons of other closed source libraries I’ve written from the ground up to
handle all the data structures, algorithms and real-time rendering.

Big Tech: I've worked and contracted at various Fortune 500 tech companies (Apple, Google, Dolby, Samsung, Nokia, Intel,
BCG and Accenture). I've executed campaigns at design studios & advertising agencies (Razorfish, Nexus Studios, B-Reel,
Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Ogilvy & Mather, Collins and more).

Startups: I've helped to build minimal viable products & solved hard technical problems at startups (Lumalabs, Syng,
Within, Bot & Dolly, Skycatch, and Famo.us). I.e. At Skycatch I re-wrote & optimized their drone route planning algorithm
(C++) to run in real-time on devices. This leveraged my deep knowledge in computational geometry & design.

Artists & Residencies: I've helped artists execute their vision and build design tools to help them create (GMUNK, OK GO,
Teddy Lo, Deadmau5 and more). I've made time to research and make art at various institutions (Carnegie Mellon
University, Autodesk, and Yamaguchi Center for Arts & Media).

Open Source: I’ve created one of the most popular libraries for working with 3D graphics on Apple platforms:
https://github.com/Hi-Rez/Satin. I recently updated this library to include physically based rendering capabilities and I’m
currently working on writing a path tracer for the library.

Apple: During my first contract at Apple, I helped to ideate, design and code "Dynamic Backgrounds" in Keynote. During my
second contract at Apple I helped to design and code various "AR Spaces" effects in Clips. I created the Prism effect
(shown during the Apple Keynote 2021) and helped the team polish & ship the other effects.

Google: While working full-time at Google I designed and built various web based AR demos that showcase the potential
of the WebXR API. Other work included designing & coding a VR Web Browser by hacking Chromium (C++) to do things it
was never meant to do.

Reza Studio: While running my art studio in San Francisco, I conceptualized and executed a large-scale immersive
audio-visual installation at Dolby's HQ on Market Street. I was the first artist to show work on their digital ribbon. I also
helped to curate all the other artists that eventually showed work at their HQ.

Exhibits & Installations

01/23/16 - OK GO Music Videos @ Sonifying Visuals + Visualizing Sound @ Fellows of Contemporary Art @ Los Angeles, CA
12/19/15 - Selected Works (Paper Galaxy, OK GO Music Videos) @ Yamaguchi Center For Arts & Media @ Yamaguchi, JP
05/01/15 - form(data) CNC Milled Sculpture @ SkyCatch @ San Francisco, CA
04/26/15 - 3D Printed Images (Mona & Lisa) @ Peninsula Museum of Art @ Burlingame, CA
02/17/15 - Paper Galaxy @ Strata+Hadoop Big Data Conference @ San Jose, CA
01/22/15 - CNC Milled Reaction Diffusion Patterns @ Autodesk  @ Pier 9 @  San Francisco, CA
09/06/14 - 3D Printed Experiments @ Autodesk University @ Mandalay Bay @ Las Vegas, NV
09/06/14 - Amber @ gif.local @ Eyebeam Unplugged @ Governor's Island New York, New York
05/01/14 - Designer & Programmer @ Paper Galaxy (w/ Jeff Linnell From Bot&Dolly) @ San Francisco, CA
05/01/14 - FluidScapes @ Organic Gallery (w/ CODAME) @ San Francisco, CA
06/26/13 - FluidScapes in "Art by Code" @ Public Works (Roll Up Gallery) @ San Francisco, CA
04/27/12 - OMG in "Peace Project Emoticon Show" @ Marth Otero Gallery @ Los Angeles, CA
11/18/11 - Designer & Programmer @ FestLive (UNTITLED Entertainment) @ Hong Kong

Clients

Chroma, Lumalabs, Apple, Dolby Laboratories, Samsung, Razorfish, Nokia, Within, Skycatch, Nexus Studios, GMUNK, Stanford, Carbone Smolan Agency, B-Reel, Patten Studio, Bonnaroo, OK GO, Bot & Dolly, SXSW, Moving Brands, Motion Theory, Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Ogilvy & Mather, Tangible Interaction, George Legrady, Knowledge Harvesting, Deadmau5 via Possible Productions, Join Merit Media, UNTITLED Entertainment, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Kimbell Art Museum 

Performances

04/05/14 - Visual Artist @ CCRMA's Modulations @ Stanford, Palo Alto, CA
03/14/13 - Visual Artist @ SXSW Live @ Doritos Stage @ Austin, TX
07/21/12 - Visual Artist @ The Bunker A/V Summer Sessions @ Monarch, San Francisco, CA

Workshops

02/10/16 - Lets Make Things Workshop (using parametric web based design tools) @ YCAM @ Yamaguchi, Japan
05/07/15 - 3D Printing Workshop with Form+1 @ Salesforce UX, San Francisco, CA
08/20/14 - Maya: Interface, Modeling, Rendering, Scripting @ Autodesk, Pier 9, San Francisco, CA
10/27/12 - openFrameworks: C++ for Processing Coders (w/ Josh Nimoy), Gray Area, San Francisco, CA
09/25/10 - Project Leader @ OFLAB @ Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Education

06/20/10 - M.S Multimedia Engineering (Visual & Spatial Design) @ UCSB Media Arts & Technology (3.9 GPA)
06/14/08 - Double B.S. Electrical & Mechanical Engineering @ Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (3.96 GPA)

Skills & Expertise

Expertise: Swift, SwiftUI, Metal, GPGPU, Graphics Programming, OpenGL, WebGL, Computational Geometry, 3D Printing, Generative Design, Simulation, (Data) Visualization, User Interface, Electrical & Mechanical Engineering, Product Design, Prototyping, Scripting, Art Direction, Visual Design, Photography, 3D Modeling, Animation and Rendering

Engineering: Signals and systems, Circuit Analysis & Design, Manufacturing, Robotics, Control System Design & Analysis, Embedded Control, Physical Computing, 3D Printing, Laser Cutting, and Machining

Platforms: macOS, Windows 7+, Linux, iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Frameworks: AppKit, UIKit, SwiftUI, Metal, ARKit, SceneKit, RealityKit, Unity, Cinder, OpenFrameworks, Processing, Three.js, Node.js, D3.js, 

Programming: Swift, C, C++, Objective-C, Javascript, Java, MEL, Python, ExtendScript, HTML5 & CSS3, GIT, Shell Scripting

Hardware: CNC Milling (DMS, Othermill) Waterjet, 3D Printing (Formlabs Form 3, Objet Connex 500, Makerbot), Arduino, Teensy, Electronics, Wood / Metal working

Software: Blender, Sketch, Figma, Final Cut Pro, Maya, Inventor, Rhino, Keyshot, Autodesk Fusion, Keynote, Solidworks, Ableton Live, Microsoft Office, XCode, Visual Studio