Andries "Andy" van Dam (born December 8, 1938) is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

-American professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

and former vice-president for research at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

. Together with

Ted Nelson Theodor Holm Nelson (born June 17, 1937) is an American pioneer of information technology, philosopher, and sociologist. He coined the terms ''hypertext'' and '' hypermedia'' in 1963 and published them in 1965. Nelson coined the terms '' trans ...

he contributed to the first

hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typi ...

system,

Hypertext Editing System The Hypertext Editing System, or HES, was an early hypertext research project conducted at Brown University in 1967 by Andries van Dam, Ted Nelson, and several Brown students.Brown University Department of Computer Science. (23 May 2019)A Half-C ...

(HES) in the late 1960s. He co-authored '' Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice'' along with J.D. Foley, S.K. Feiner, and John Hughes. He also co-founded the precursor of today's

ACM SIGGRAPH ACM SIGGRAPH is the international Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques based in New York. It was founded in 1969 by Andy van Dam (its direct predecessor, ACM SICGRAPH was f ...

conference. Van Dam serves on several technical boards and committees. He teaches an introductory course in computer science and courses in

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

at Brown University. Van Dam received his B.S. degree with Honors in Engineering Sciences from

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

in 1960 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1963 and 1966, respectively.

Students

Van Dam has mentored undergraduates, other scholars, and practitioners in hypertext and computer graphics. One of his students was

Randy Pausch Randolph Frederick Pausch (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American educator, a professor of computer science, human–computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pausch learn ...

, who gained national renown in the process of dying from pancreatic cancer. Pausch's Last Lecture in September 2007 was the basis for the bestseller ''Last Lecture''. Van Dam was the final speaker after the hour-plus talk. He praised Pausch for his courage and leadership, calling him a role model. Pausch died on July 25, 2008.

Danah Boyd danah boyd (stylized in lowercase, born November 24, 1977 as Danah Michele Mattas) She noted her mother added lowercase 'h' in birth name "danah" for typographical balance, reflecting the lowercase first letter 'd' and later changed her last na ...

Scott Draves Scott Draves is the inventor of Fractal Flames and the leader of the distributed computing project Electric Sheep. He also invented patch-based texture synthesis and published the first implementation of this class of algorithms. He is also a ...

Dick Bulterman Dick C. A. Bulterman (born 1951) is a senior researcher at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, where he heads the Distributed Multimedia Languages and Interfaces theme. He is also a professor of computer science at the Vrije Uni ...

, Robert Sedgewick,

Andy Hertzfeld Andrew Jay Hertzfeld (born April 6, 1953) is an American software engineer and innovator who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for App ...

, and

Steven K. Feiner Steven K. Feiner is an American computer scientist, serving as Professor for computer science at Columbia University in the field of computer graphics. He is well-known for his research in augmented reality (AR), and co-author of '' Computer Gra ...

also were students of Andy van Dam.

Achievements

Originally appointed as a professor of

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical s ...

, van Dam helped to found the computer science program at Brown as a joint project between the departments of applied mathematics and

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

. 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

in 1966, he became the second person to receive a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in Computer Science. Van Dam is perhaps most known as the co-designer, along with Ted Nelson, of the first

system, HES, in the late 1960s. With it and its immediate successor,

FRESS The File Retrieval and Editing SyStem, or FRESS, was a hypertext system developed at Brown University starting in 1968 by Andries van Dam and his students, including Bob Wallace. It was the first hypertext system to run on readily available comm ...

, he was an early proponent of the use of hypertext in the humanities and in pedagogy. The term ''hypertext'' was coined by

, who was working with him at the time. Van Dam'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 popular textbook in

and is often called the "Bible" of computer graphics. In 1967, van Dam co-founded ACM SICGRAPH, the precursor of today's

. In 1983 he was one of the founders of

IRIS Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term Iris or IRIS may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional ent ...

, which developed a hypertext scholar's workstation. In 1984, he received the

IEEE Centennial Medal The IEEE Centennial Medal was a medal minted and awarded in 1984 ''to persons deserving of special recognition for extraordinary achievement'' to celebrate the Centennial of the founding of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (I ...

. Van Dam teaches an Introduction to Computer Graphics course, as well as one first-year course every fall. He is also serving on the technical board of

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

, 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 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

committee. In 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

, and a chaired professorship was recently endowed in his honor at Brown University. In 2019, he was awarded the inaugural

Distinguished Educator Award. When the Brown Center for Information Technology was built, van Dam demanded it include showers and a Chinese restaurant. The showers were built. The character of Andy in the film ''

Toy Story ''Toy Story'' is a 1995 American computer-animated comedy film directed by John Lasseter (in his feature directorial debut), produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The first installment in the '' Toy Story ...

'' is named after van Dam. The filmmakers, many of whom had van Dam 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. ''Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice'' appears on Andy's bookshelf in the film.

Documentary film

* Andries van Dam: ''Hypertext: An Educational Experiment in English and Computer Science at Brown University.'' Brown University, Providence, RI, U.S. 1974, Run time 15:16,
Full Movie on the Internet Archive

References

External links

Andries van Dam's Homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dam, Andries van 1938 births Living people American computer scientists Brown University faculty Computer graphics professionals Computer graphics researchers Dutch emigrants to the United States Dutch computer scientists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Scientists from Groningen (city) Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Computer science educators IEEE Centennial Medal laureates Fellow Members of the IEEE