Gary Keith Starkweather (January 9, 1938 – December 26, 2019) was an American engineer and inventor most notable for the invention of the

laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to ...

and

color management In digital imaging systems, color management (or colour management) is the controlled conversion between the color representations of various devices, such as image scanners, digital cameras, monitors, TV screens, film printers, computer printer ...

. Starkweather received a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

from Michigan State University in 1960 and an M.S. in

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultrav ...

from the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

in 1966. In 1969, Starkweather invented the

at the

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...

Webster Research Center. He collaborated on the first fully functional laser-printing system at

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

in 1971. At Apple Computer in the 1990s, Starkweather invented

technology, and led the development of

Colorsync This is a list of macOS built-in apps and system components. Applications App Store The Mac App Store is macOS's digital distribution platform for macOS apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. based on the iOS version, the platform was an ...

1.0. In 1991 he was awarded the David Richardson Medal. Starkweather joined Microsoft Research in 1997, where he worked on display technology. Starkweather also made major contributions to digital matte film techniques. He was a consultant on the digital effects team for the original Star Wars movie (1977). He won a technical Academy Award in 1994 for his pioneering work with Lucasfilm (and later, Pixar) in the field of color film scanning. In 2004, he was elected to the United States

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

. He retired in 2005. Starkweather died on December 26, 2019 at the age of 81.

References

External links

Bio at University of WashingtonA Christian in Silicon Valley: An Interview with Gary Starkweather
Apple Inc. employees Color scientists Michigan State University alumni Microsoft employees University of Rochester alumni Scientists at PARC (company) 1938 births 2019 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering People from Palo Alto, California {{US-engineer-stub