Achievements
Originally appointed as a professor of applied mathematics, he helped to found the computer science program at Brown as a joint project between the departments of applied mathematics and engineering. When the program was promoted to a full department, van Dam served as its first chair, from 1979 to 1985. In 1995 van Dam was appointed Thomas J. Watson, Jr. University Professor of Technology and Education as well as professor of computer science.
At the University of Pennsylvania in 1966, he became the second person to receive a Ph.D. in Computer Science.
Van Dam is perhaps most known for building the first hypertext system, HES, in the late 1960s. With it and its immediate successor, FRESS, he was an early proponent of the use of hypertext in the humanities and in pedagogy. The term hypertext was coined by Ted Nelson, who was working for him at the time. Andy's continued interest in hypertext was crucial to the development of modern markup and browsing technology, and several of his students were instrumental in the origin of XML, XSLT, and related Web standards.
He is also known for co-authoring Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice with J.D. Foley, S.K. Feiner, and J.F. Hughes. This book is an important text in computer graphics and is often fondly referred to as the "Bible" of computer graphics.
In 1967, Professor van Dam co-founded ACM SICGRAPH, the precursor of today's ACM SIGGRAPH.
Currently, Professor van Dam is teaching at Brown University. He teaches Introduction to Computer Graphics, as well as one first-year course every fall. He is also serving on the Technical Board of Microsoft Research, as Chairman of the Rhode Island Governor's Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC), and as Chairman of the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal committee. In 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, and a chaired professorship was recently endowed in his honor at Brown University.
When the Brown Center for Informational Technology was built, Andy demanded it include showers and a Chinese restaurant. The showers were built and continue to be used to this day.
The character of Andy in the film Toy Story is rumored to be named for Andy van Dam. The filmmakers, many of whom had Andy as a professor, wanted to pay tribute to his pioneering work in computer graphics. This story is told during admissions tours at Brown University and has made it into the IMDB trivia for Toy Story. van Dam denies this rumor. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice appears on Andy's bookshelf in the film, which may be the origin of this rumor.
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Famous quotes containing the word achievements:
“There are some achievements which are never done in the presence of those who hear of them. Catching salmon is one, and working all night is another.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
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—Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)