Steve is a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University and is visiting NVIDIA on sabbatical during the academic year 2023-2024. His research interests are in computer graphics and vision, centered around how optics and mechanics determine the appearance of materials and how we can accurately and completely model that appearance in practical rendering systems. His work has helped shape how skin, hair, and cloth are rendered in production.

Steve got his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1998, and held research positions at HP Laboratories, Microsoft Research, and Stanford University before rejoining Cornell in 2002. He was previously a visiting professor at ETH Zürich and has worked at Disney Research, WETA Digital, and Pixar. He received the Computer Graphics Achievement Award from SIGGRAPH in 2015 and a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2004. He is co-author of the computer graphics textbook Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, used in many introductory graphics courses worldwide.