Rosemary Chang is a technical staff member in Corporate Research and Development with Silicon Graphics, in Mountain View, California, where she applies her knowledge of Computer Aided Geometric Design (CAGD) to the representation, design and visualization of geometric objects. In particular, she develops algorithms that take advantage of improvements in hardware and that enhance the performance of software used to tessellate free form surfaces. The fifteen member Research and Development group she is a member of is a company wide resource and she spends part of her time helping engineers identify the correct mathematics software for their applications. As Silicon Graphics grows, it is also her responsibility to keep track of what is going on throughout the company in the area of geometric design.
Recently she worked on the realistic rendering of computer models of mechanical systems, focusing on the problem of rendering free form surfaces in real time. She is also looking at many representations of surfaces such as Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBs) and the use of error bounds to determine the right level of tessellation. Much of her work is related to a major problem for the graphics industry. That is, how to take a product smoothly through the design, analysis and manufacturing stages, converting the computer model used at one stage into a model compatible with the next stage.
Although industry was a big unknown to Rosemary when she first began to look for a job, she found in general she liked the people she talked with on interviews and found they had respect for the work she was doing at the time. She began her career at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California and then moved to Control Data Corporation in Minneapolis, where she held a management position. She believes the move to Silicon Graphics in 1987, first in a graphics group and later in corporate research, has been good for her professionally.
She recommends that students interested in industry seek out internships, such as the program at Silicon Graphics. Looking for people in their academic departments with contacts in industry, either through research grants or experience, is another way to make connections with a particular industry or company. Computing experience and programming skills are necessary for almost any industry job, and in her area she finds a good background in linear algebra to be helpful. The ability to explain work clearly both orally and in writing is also necessary. She finds that attendance at professional meetings in an area of specialty can also help a student make contacts and increase visibility.
Rosemary has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Brown University, and a B.S. in applied mathematics from New York University. Although when Rosemary finished her degree most people working in the area of geometric design came from mathematics departments, this has changed and most people entering the area now come from computer science.
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