Rate My Professor Ronald Fedkiw

Ronald Fedkiw serves as the Canon Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, holding a courtesy appointment in Electrical Engineering. He earned his PhD in Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996 and conducted part of his postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology. Fedkiw joined the Stanford Computer Science faculty around 2000, advancing to full professor, and holds memberships in Bio-X and the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME). In 2023, he was appointed the Canon Professor, continuing Stanford's tradition of excellence in engineering.

Fedkiw's research centers on the design of innovative computational algorithms applied to computational fluid dynamics, computer graphics, biomechanics, and computer vision. His pioneering work includes level set methods for interface tracking, ghost fluid methods for multimaterial flows, and simulations of smoke, liquids, cloth, deformable solids, and structural destruction. Notable publications include the book 'Level Set Methods and Dynamic Implicit Surfaces' with Stanley Osher (Springer, 2003); 'Visual Simulation of Smoke' (SIGGRAPH 2001); 'Practical Animation of Liquids' (SIGGRAPH 2001); 'A Hybrid Particle Level Set Method for Improved Interface Capturing' (Journal of Computational Physics, 2002); and 'Robust Treatment of Collisions, Contact and Friction for Cloth Animation' (SIGGRAPH 2002). These contributions have garnered over tens of thousands of citations and significantly impacted the fields of scientific computing and visual effects. Fedkiw's software developments, such as PhysBAM, have been employed in major films including the Avengers series and Transformers for realistic destruction simulations. Since 2000, he has consulted for Industrial Light & Magic. His achievements are recognized by two Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievement (2007 for fluid simulations used in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; 2015 for the PhysBAM Destruction System), the National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research, Packard Foundation Fellowship, NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award (2005), Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award, and Stanford's Robert N. Noyce Family Faculty Scholarship.