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Hi. This page is tells a little more about the Brett behind the Brett. The picture above shows Brett contemplating the nature of the universe at the Ryoan-ji dry garden in Kyoto, Japan. But most of the time he's running around trying to get his life in order.
Right now I'm an R&D Engineer at Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects company that worked on Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Men In Black, and many more. ILM is located in the beautiful Presidio of San Francisco.
I went to grad school at the University of Washington, working in the Graphics and Imaging Lab in the Computer Science Department. My research was on creating human character models for computer graphics, working on ways to use data captured from the real world (e.g., 3D scans of people) to build these models automatically. I've published a couple of papers on this topic along with my advisors, Brian Curless and Zoran Popović. I graduated in December 2005 with a Ph.D.
In July 2003, I got married to my beautiful finacée, Yetta! Our daughter, Kira, was born in April 2006.
As an undergraduate, I went to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. I was in the co-op program, and my first two work terms were with the E-GEMS project at UBC. E-GEMS stands for Electronic Games for the Education of Math and Science. I did a lot of work on our unique game called Phoenix Quest, which is targetted at grades 4-6. A fun part of doing research on educational games is taking them into schools and watching the kids play. In the summer of 1999 I went back to work part-time on our new multiplayer Java game, Avalanche.
In 1997, I spent seven months in Tokyo, Japan, working at Sony. No, I wasn't making televisions; I was working with the "Virtual Society" project, creating a tool for building interactive 3D worlds. However, in order to prove my loyalty to the company, I bought an MD Walkman and a Diskman. This deal (the work term, not the electronics) was arranged through the Co-op Japan Program. For more about Japan, see my Japan Stories and Japan Photos pages.
I also did a work term with the 3D Tools group of Electronic Arts Canada, who are responsible for some games under the EA Sports and Electronic Arts labels.
My hobbies include juggling, hiking, reading, and watching movies. I play some computer games, mostly of the real-time or turn-based strategy genre, though I'm more a fan of board games and the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game. I have a somewhat warped sense of humour, cultivated from watching Monty Python, and hanging around with weird friends. I'm also interested in languages... so far I've studied French, Japanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin Chinese, although I can't proclaim any tremendous proficiency.
I'm a vegetarian. Why, you ask? Actually, I forget why... it's been 10 years; who can keep track of these things.
In 1993, I participated in the Shad Valley program at the University of Waterloo. My penchant for nifty programs also led me to take the Science One first year program at UBC. Both are highly recommended for up-and-coming science types.
I grew up near Kingston, Ontario, Canada, where my family is now.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS d- s: a C++$ UL P+ L+ E---- W++ N+ w++ !O M+ V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP- t+ 5 X R tv b++ DI+ G e++++ h-- r+++ y? ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------(For info about the above, see "The Geek Zone". My geek code block may be somewhat dated.)
