Stony Brook University Distinguished Professor and former Chair of the Department of Computer Science, Arie Kaufman, has been inducted into the inaugural class of the IEEE Visualization Academy. The Academy, the most esteemed award in the field of visualization, honors individuals who have made significant and impactful contributions in the field of visualization.

Kaufman was officially inducted into the IEEE Visualization Academy at a special Induction Ceremony at the IEEE Visualization Conference (IEEE VIS 2019) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Tuesday, October 22, 2019. “The Visualization Academy inductees are the top research leaders of the field of visualization who have had extensive impact on the field and its applications,” said James Ahrens, Chair of the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee (VGTC) of the Technical Activities Board of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Computer Society.

"Arie's work has gifted the Computer Science department with significant visibility in the field of visualization," said Samir Das, Chair of Stony Brook’s Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. "Especially his work on virtual colonoscopy, which has put Stony Brook on the map in medical imaging. A large cross-section of faculty and students here on campus benefited tremendously from his mentorship."

Spanning more than forty years, Kaufman’s substantial research in visualization, graphics, virtual reality, user interfaces and multimedia has led to major breakthroughs and cutting-edge inventions including:

●     3D Virtual Colonoscopy: A technique for colon cancer screening that has been licensed, FDA approved, commercialized and has already saved tens of thousands of lives
●     Cube Architectures: Real-time volume rendering hardware licensed and commercialized as the VolumePro board, which enables 3D medical imaging on PCs
●     The Reality Deck: This 1.5 Billion-pixel-immersive display is the largest resolution immersive visualization facility ever built, enabling visual analytics of big data
●     Real-time Simulation, Visualization and Analytics: Used for airborne flow dispersion in rural and urban environments, supporting battlefield training and homeland security. This work pioneered the use of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and GPU-clusters, especially for accelerating computation, simulation, visualization and machine learning
●     Volume Visualization: Leading and pioneering the area and technologies that enable the interactive display of 3D data. Compiled the first book on Volume Visualization in 1991
●     VolVis: A comprehensive volume visualization software with an installed base of more than 5,000. It has been licensed and forms the basis for many state-of-the-art volume visualization software systems
●     Volume Graphics: Pioneered the area and technologies of 3D volumetric geometry, which were licensed and used in one of the first flight simulators

In addition to these major innovations and his pioneering accomplishments, Kaufman has also published more than 340 refereed papers, books and book chapters; more than 300 conference presentations and non-refereed manuscripts, and has been awarded or filed more than 100 patents worldwide (most of which have been licensed). He has also been a principal/co-principal investigator on more than 100 research grants.

His IEEE Visualization Academy induction follows numerous significant honors and awards, including 2017 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, 2009 Fellow of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), 1998 Fellow of the IEEE, 2005 IEEE Visualization Career Award, 2013 Long Island Technology Hall of Fame inductee, and 2002 member of the European Academy of Sciences. Other awards and accolades include 2005 State of New York Innovative Research Award, 2004 IEEE Long Island Section's Harold Wheeler Award, 2002 State of New York Entrepreneur Award, and his time as founding Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transaction on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), 1995-1998.

Kaufman joined the Stony Brook Computer Science faculty in 1985 and was appointed Chair of the Department of Computer Science in 1999, serving until 2017. Currently, he is the Director of the Center of Visual Computing (CVC), Chief Scientist of theCenter of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT), and a Distinguished Professor of Radiology.

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