Rick Parent, (MS’ 73, PhD.’77) received Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award

Rick Parent who received his MS and Ph.D. in CSE at the Ohio State University in 1973 and 1977 respectively, received the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award. Rick was a CSE professor from 1985-2012, and remains as Professor Emeritus in the department.  Rick has been recognized as a Computer Graphics Pioneer by ACM SIGGRAPH, which is a high honor in computer graphics field.  His book of Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques is the book in the field, and has been translated into 4 different languages, including Chinese, French, Polish, and Russian. It is also the only book on Computer Animation for students, researchers, and practitioners in the world. Publisher Morgan Kaufmann promotes Rick’s book as the best technically-oriented animation resource.

Rick has published several seminal papers that have influenced the field in general animation, parallel processing, and human figure animation. His Ph.D. supervision record is outstanding. Several of his CSE Ph.D. graduates have become world leaders in industries and in academia, e.g. Dave Ebert (Professor in Purdue University), Dave Haumann (Pixar, 1997 Academy Award), Doug Roble, (Digital Domain, Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award at Ohio State, Academy Award in Technical Achievement in 1998 and 2008), Ferdi Scheepers (Pixar, 2017 Academy Award), and Karen Singh (Professor in University of Toronto).

Xiaodong Zhang, the former department chair nominated Rick for this award with the following comment: “Rick is a role model to be a distinguished professor, who has written a great book, graduated a group of great students, and published several great papers in his fields.”   

We are very proud of Rick as an alumnus and as a colleague for his outstanding contributions in the field, to the university and to our department.

Rick Parent received Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award at Ohio State in November 2 2018.