Bio

A computer graphics pioneer who helped establish human-computer interaction (HCI), Jim Foley is a professor and the Fleming Chair in Telecommunications for the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is considered a leading international figure in the fields of graphics and HCI. Within those fields, he was honored with lifetime achievement awards from the Association for Computer Machinery's SIGGRAPH (1997) and SIGCHI (2007). He is co-author of five books and the first to write a definitive text about computer graphics, “Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics”, which has sold 400,000 copies in 10 translations.

 In 1991, Foley arrived at Georgia Tech and founded the GVU Center. Five years later, U.S. News and World Report ranked it No. 1 for graduate computer science work in graphics and user interaction. Foley became director of the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory (MERL) in 1996 and later served as chairman and CEO of Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America. He returned to Georgia in 1999 to lead the state's economic development initiative for broadband systems, devices and chips. Foley has served as chair of the Computing Research Association (CRA), representing more than 250 research universities, corporate research labs and professional societies. In February 2008, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional distinctions given to an engineer. He received the Class of 1934’s 2008 Distinguished Professor Award -- the highest honor Georgia Tech bestows upon faculty. Foley says he most treasures the honor given to him by computing students who named him "Most Likely to Make Students Want to Grow Up to be Professors."  Foley served as interim dean of the College of Computing from 2008 to 2010.