Edward Angel is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico and Founding Director of the Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory ( ARTS Lab). Until July, 2007, he was Professor of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Media Arts at UNM and Director of both the ARTS Lab and the Arts Technology Center in the College of Fine Arts. Professor Angel is the first UNM Presidential Teaching Fellow. He received B.S. from the California Institute of Technology in 1964 and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in 1968. He has held academic positions at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Southern California, and the University of Rochester. Professor Angel came to UNM in 1978. He was Associate Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (1982-85) and Chair of the Computer Science Department (1985-88). He has held visiting positions at the Lund Institute of Technology (Sweden), the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore India (Senior Fulbright Lecturer), University College London and Imperial College (London). He has also held a variety of joint appointments ranging from Biomathematics (USC) to Obstetrics and Gynecology (Rochester) to Electrical and Computer Engineering and Media Arts (UNM).
His main research interests have been in computer graphics and scientific visualization. He has supported graduate students working in volume visualization, virtual reality, and masssively parallel computing. His main teaching interests have been in Computer Graphics. He has taught over 100 professional short courses including a MOOC with Coursera and at both SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia.
Professor Angel was on sabbatical during 1995-96. During the fall he taught at the Universidad de los Andes in Merida, Venezuela and at the Universidad Tecnologica Equinoccial in Quito, Ecuador. During the spring he visited National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and the Chinese University in Hong Kong. Before leaving for two months of trekking in Nepal and Tibet he finished a graphics textbook, Interactive Computer Graphics (Addison-Wesley). Read more about our adventures writing the book. Although writing susequent editions was not as eventful as writing the first, they supported treks in Nepal. Ladakh and Kazakstan as well as travel over much of Asia, Africa and South America. The third edition of his book, the OpenGL Primer, was published in 2006. The eighth edition of Interactive Computer Graphics was released in August, 2019, with Dave Shreiner as coauthor.
Professor Angel was the Principal Investigator of the NSF funded Digital Pueblo Project which combined Arts and Technology to promote economic development among the communities in New Mexico through collaborative graphics and animation projects. Professor Angel led a group of UNM faculty who were awarded $3M from the State of New Mexico to build the Art, Research, Technology, and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) at UNM. The ARTS Lab is a unique interdiscplinary center with educational, research, and economic development activities that span the range of digital media. He was coPI on the NSF CE21 Project New Mexico Computer Science for All which worked with teachers across the state to bring Computer Science and Computational Thinking into the high schools. He was coPI on the NSF Partnerships for Innovation Project "A Consortium for Fulldome Development" with the ARTS Lab, the Santa Fe Complex and the Institute for American Indian Arts. He also served on the Governor's Council on Film and Media Industries. He served as vice President Board of Directors of the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge and is the former chair of the Board of Directors of the Santa Fe Complex. He also served on the boards of Creative Startups (Santa Fe) and the Charleston Immersive/Interactive Media Studio (South Carolina).
In 2019, he received the Exemplary Service Award from the UNM School of Engineering Leadership Board. At SIGGRAPH 2022, he received the Distinguished Educator Award.
