## Meet the Speakers  Inventions, Innovations, and Imagination: Lanny Smoot’s Prolific Path SIGGRAPH 2026 Keynote:Lanny Smoot One of Disney’s most prolific inventors is taking the SIGGRAPH 2026 stage for an exciting presentation that will have attendees reflecting on the power of research, activating emerging technologies, and the value of cross-industry connections to drive technological advancements in one’s career. Lanny Smoot will share some of the significant inventions and innovations he’s made during his long career in research and development, starting by working backward through his 27 years at Walt Disney Imagineering R&D and to his earlier 20-year career at the nation’s telecommunications giants: Bell Labs, Bellcore, SAIC, and Telcordia. Along the way, Lanny will invite us into his lab and will describe the career lessons he’s learned — the importance of both research and new ideas and the necessity for collaboration between people with disparate talents. He will describe how he, and many engineers and scientists, are inspired to come into their fields and how young practitioners can find success. As a long-time contributor to and friend of SIGGRAPH, Lanny will reflect on some of his professional contributions to the conference, including the Emerging Technologies systems he’s dreamed up: “The Electromagnetic Eye”, “Volumetric Display”, “The Interactive Holographic Zoetrope”, and the “Interactive Ping Pong Ball Zoetrope”. Come for a story of meaningful advancements that revolutionized entertainment and communication, and be inspired by a unique career path built on imagination and taking technology to the next level. Lanny’s SIGGRAPH 2026 Keynote Presentation takes place Monday, 20 July. Image credit: Walt Disney Imagineering About the Speaker Lanny Smoot ( Research Fellow, Disney Research ) has spent more than 45 years as a theatrical technology creator, telecommunications systems researcher, inventor, electrical engineer, and scientist — with 25 of those years at The Walt Disney Company. Lanny holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University and he has invented and patented many forward-looking technologies that allow The Walt Disney Company and, ultimately, the theatrical community at large to create new magic, illusions, and entertainment. With 107 patents to his name, he is Disney’s most prolific inventor. His work can be seen throughout Disney’s theme parks, resorts, and cruise ships worldwide. Lanny joined Walt Disney Imagineering as the head of its Research & Development site in East Hampton, New York, and moved with that group to the Los Angeles Imagineering R&D headquarters a few years later. He joined Disney Research (the most forward-looking part of Research & Development) and became a Disney Research Fellow in 2014. Seventy-five of Lanny’s patents are from his research and inventions at Disney. Some of Lanny’s early patents and innovations there include “Where’s the Fire?” at Innoventions, formerly at EPCOT; classic special effects guests love in the Haunted Mansion; the virtual interactive koi ponds at the Crystal Lotus Restaurant at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel; the Fortress Explorations interactives at Tokyo DisneySea; and “Power City” at Project Tomorrow. More recently, he has created state-of-the-art extendable lightsabers along with the high-tech interactive lightsaber training experience used at Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser at Walt Disney World. He and his team have also created the HoloTile™ Floor, an omnidirectional treadmill, allowing persons on it, wearing head mounted displays, to walk through surrounding virtual environments. Before Disney, Lanny worked at Bell Labs and then at Bell Communications Research (where he was also that company’s patent leader). While at Bell, Lanny earned patents on early video-on-demand technology, video conferencing, and television systems allowing viewers to individually choose their gaze direction from a special camera. Lanny is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including three Thea Awards from the Themed Entertainment Association (for Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland Park, Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure at EPCOT, and the “Ghost Post” limited time experience inspired by the Haunted Mansion). Additionally, he was named a 2020 TEA Master, also by the Themed Entertainment Association. Lanny was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame® in the class of 2024 and is only the second person from The Walt Disney Company to achieve this honor. The first was Walt Disney, honored posthumously in 2020 for the invention of the multiplane camera. Lanny was featured as part of the exhibit “Breaking Barriers: Honoring Extraordinary Black Inventors” at the National Inventors Hall of Fame® Museum located in the United States Patent and Trademark Office headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The NIHF exhibit is being presented in partnership with the USPTO and the Black Inventors Hall of Fame. Beyond his own achievements, Lanny feels a responsibility to help others recognize and magnify their own talent and creativity. He has often spoken at schools from the university level to grade schools to encourage young people, especially people of color, to consider careers in the sciences and themed entertainment and he has mentored dozens of young people over the years, almost all of whom have gone on to successful careers at The Walt Disney Company and elsewhere. ### Inventions, Innovations, and Imagination: Lanny Smoot’s Prolific Path ## SIGGRAPH 2026 Keynote:Lanny Smoot One of Disney’s most prolific inventors is taking the SIGGRAPH 2026 stage for an exciting presentation that will have attendees reflecting on the power of research, activating emerging technologies, and the value of cross-industry connections to drive technological advancements in one’s career. Lanny Smoot will share some of the significant inventions and innovations he’s made during his long career in research and development, starting by working backward through his 27 years at Walt Disney Imagineering R&D and to his earlier 20-year career at the nation’s telecommunications giants: Bell Labs, Bellcore, SAIC, and Telcordia. Along the way, Lanny will invite us into his lab and will describe the career lessons he’s learned — the importance of both research and new ideas and the necessity for collaboration between people with disparate talents. He will describe how he, and many engineers and scientists, are inspired to come into their fields and how young practitioners can find success. As a long-time contributor to and friend of SIGGRAPH, Lanny will reflect on some of his professional contributions to the conference, including the Emerging Technologies systems he’s dreamed up: “The Electromagnetic Eye”, “Volumetric Display”, “The Interactive Holographic Zoetrope”, and the “Interactive Ping Pong Ball Zoetrope”. Come for a story of meaningful advancements that revolutionized entertainment and communication, and be inspired by a unique career path built on imagination and taking technology to the next level. *Lanny’s SIGGRAPH 2026 Keynote Presentation takes place Monday, 20 July.* *Image credit: Walt Disney Imagineering* About the Speaker Lanny Smoot (*Research Fellow, Disney Research*) has spent more than 45 years as a theatrical technology creator, telecommunications systems researcher, inventor, electrical engineer, and scientist — with 25 of those years at The Walt Disney Company. Lanny holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University and he has invented and patented many forward-looking technologies that allow The Walt Disney Company and, ultimately, the theatrical community at large to create new magic, illusions, and entertainment. With 107 patents to his name, he is Disney’s most prolific inventor. His work can be seen throughout Disney’s theme parks, resorts, and cruise ships worldwide. Lanny joined Walt Disney Imagineering as the head of its Research & Development site in East Hampton, New York, and moved with that group to the Los Angeles Imagineering R&D headquarters a few years later. He joined Disney Research (the most forward-looking part of Research & Development) and became a Disney Research Fellow in 2014. Seventy-five of Lanny’s patents are from his research and inventions at Disney. Some of Lanny’s early patents and innovations there include “Where’s the Fire?” at Innoventions, formerly at EPCOT; classic special effects guests love in the Haunted Mansion; the virtual interactive koi ponds at the Crystal Lotus Restaurant at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel; the Fortress Explorations interactives at Tokyo DisneySea; and “Power City” at Project Tomorrow. More recently, he has created state-of-the-art extendable lightsabers along with the high-tech interactive lightsaber training experience used at Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser at Walt Disney World. He and his team have also created the HoloTile™ Floor, an omnidirectional treadmill, allowing persons on it, wearing head mounted displays, to walk through surrounding virtual environments. Before Disney, Lanny worked at Bell Labs and then at Bell Communications Research (where he was also that company’s patent leader). While at Bell, Lanny earned patents on early video-on-demand technology, video conferencing, and television systems allowing viewers to individually choose their gaze direction from a special camera. Lanny is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including three Thea Awards from the Themed Entertainment Association (for Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland Park, Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure at EPCOT, and the “Ghost Post” limited time experience inspired by the Haunted Mansion). Additionally, he was named a 2020 TEA Master, also by the Themed Entertainment Association. Lanny was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame® in the class of 2024 and is only the second person from The Walt Disney Company to achieve this honor. The first was Walt Disney, honored posthumously in 2020 for the invention of the multiplane camera. Lanny was featured as part of the exhibit “Breaking Barriers: Honoring Extraordinary Black Inventors” at the National Inventors Hall of Fame® Museum located in the United States Patent and Trademark Office headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The NIHF exhibit is being presented in partnership with the USPTO and the Black Inventors Hall of Fame. Beyond his own achievements, Lanny feels a responsibility to help others recognize and magnify their own talent and creativity. He has often spoken at schools from the university level to grade schools to encourage young people, especially people of color, to consider careers in the sciences and themed entertainment and he has mentored dozens of young people over the years, almost all of whom have gone on to successful careers at The Walt Disney Company and elsewhere.  Next Era of Graphics — Neural Rendering, World Models, and Simulation Sponsored Keynote by NVIDIA: Jan Kautz, Ming-Yu Liu, and Edward Liu Join NVIDIA Research and Engineering leaders to experience the latest advances shaping computer graphics and simulation. We will explore breakthrough neural rendering techniques, progress in developing world models, and simulation methods for AI, built by AI. Through recent research examples and demos, we’ll look at how these technologies are changing the way digital worlds are built, rendered, and used across every domain — creative tools, industrial design, robotics, and autonomous systems. NVIDIA’s SIGGRAPH 2026 Sponsored Keynote Presentation takes place Monday, 20 July, 3:45 pm PDT. Images credit: Headshots by NVIDIA About the Speakers Jan Kautz leads the Learning and Perception Research team at NVIDIA, working on fundamental research in AI, including embodied foundation models, efficient AI, visual perception, and AI 4 Science. His team’s work has been given prestigious awards and has been regularly featured in the media. Numerous NVIDIA products have been enabled by the team’s research advances. Before joining NVIDIA in 2013, Jan was a tenured faculty member at University College London. He received his Ph.D. from the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A full publication list is available on his webpage. Ming-Yu Liu is an IEEE Fellow who leads the NVIDIA Cosmos Lab (and previously the Deep Imagination Research group), focusing on generative AI for Physical AI—including world foundation models that enable machines to simulate, reason about, and interact with the physical world. Driven by the vision of building a physics-grounded “Matrix” for robots, Liu bridges cutting-edge research with real-world platforms used by millions, with his team’s work powering major NVIDIA technologies such as Cosmos (World foundation models for Physical AI), Edify (generative AI for creative industries), Canvas (GauGAN), and Maxine (LivePortrait), along with contributions to text-to-image, text-to-video, and text-to-3D models. A prolific researcher with publications in top venues like NeurIPS, CVPR, and SIGGRAPH, he previously worked at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park. Edward Liu is Director of Applied Deep Learning Research at NVIDIA, where he leads research in AI for real-time graphics and generative visual computing. He has helped transform real-time graphics through AI, leading key advances across the DLSS technology suite, which is now widely adopted across the industry and has become a defining RTX product differentiator. He has also helped advance the convergence of AI and real-time ray tracing in modern interactive graphics. His current work spans DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, real-time visual generation, and broader research shaping the future of AI-powered interactive visual computing. Across foundational research, productization, and developer ecosystem integration, he translates breakthroughs into practical technologies deployed at industry scale. ### Next Era of Graphics — Neural Rendering, World Models, and Simulation ## Sponsored Keynote by NVIDIA: Jan Kautz, Ming-Yu Liu, and Edward Liu Join NVIDIA Research and Engineering leaders to experience the latest advances shaping computer graphics and simulation. We will explore breakthrough neural rendering techniques, progress in developing world models, and simulation methods for AI, built by AI. Through recent research examples and demos, we’ll look at how these technologies are changing the way digital worlds are built, rendered, and used across every domain — creative tools, industrial design, robotics, and autonomous systems. *NVIDIA’s SIGGRAPH 2026 Sponsored Keynote Presentation takes place Monday, 20 July, 3:45 pm PDT.* *Images credit: Headshots by NVIDIA* About the Speakers **Jan Kautz** leads the Learning and Perception Research team at NVIDIA, working on fundamental research in AI, including embodied foundation models, efficient AI, visual perception, and AI 4 Science. His team’s work has been given prestigious awards and has been regularly featured in the media. Numerous NVIDIA products have been enabled by the team’s research advances. Before joining NVIDIA in 2013, Jan was a tenured faculty member at University College London. He received his Ph.D. from the Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A full publication list is available on his **[webpage](https://jankautz.com/)**. **Ming-Yu Liu** is an IEEE Fellow who leads the **[NVIDIA Cosmos Lab](https://research.nvidia.com/labs/cosmos-lab/)** (and previously the Deep Imagination Research group), focusing on generative AI for Physical AI—including world foundation models that enable machines to simulate, reason about, and interact with the physical world. Driven by the vision of building a physics-grounded “Matrix” for robots, Liu bridges cutting-edge research with real-world platforms used by millions, with his team’s work powering major NVIDIA technologies such as Cosmos (World foundation models for Physical AI), Edify (generative AI for creative industries), Canvas (GauGAN), and Maxine (LivePortrait), along with contributions to text-to-image, text-to-video, and text-to-3D models. A prolific researcher with publications in top venues like NeurIPS, CVPR, and SIGGRAPH, he previously worked at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park. **Edward Liu** is Director of Applied Deep Learning Research at NVIDIA, where he leads research in AI for real-time graphics and generative visual computing. He has helped transform real-time graphics through AI, leading key advances across the DLSS technology suite, which is now widely adopted across the industry and has become a defining RTX product differentiator. He has also helped advance the convergence of AI and real-time ray tracing in modern interactive graphics. His current work spans DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, real-time visual generation, and broader research shaping the future of AI-powered interactive visual computing. Across foundational research, productization, and developer ecosystem integration, he translates breakthroughs into practical technologies deployed at industry scale.  Darwesh\_Headshot-04556 ### Building a GPU for the Future of Computer Graphics ## Sponsored Keynote by Bolt Graphics:Darwesh Singh, Founder, CEO/CTO What happens when you design a GPU to be very efficient at path tracing and physics simulations? It ends up looking different from any other GPU. GPUs were originally designed to be proficient at rasterization. However, the holy grail of computer graphics is real-time path tracing and simulations, which so far has been difficult to achieve with GPUs built around rasterization. Learn how Bolt Graphics is building its very own GPU, Zeus, to achieve real-time path tracing and simulations for creators and researchers around the world. *Bolt Graphics’ SIGGRAPH 2026 Sponsored Keynote Presentation takes place Tuesday, 21 July at 2:30 pm PDT.* *Image credit: Jill Mueller* About the Speaker Darwesh Singh is driven by a passion for learning and a dedication to pushing boundaries. Starting his career at just 14, Darwesh quickly became known for his ability to solve complex tech problems. He made waves early on by founding Bolt Graphics in 2020 after a decade of designing data centers and cloud environments for Fortune 500 companies. His mission? To tackle performance issues with heavy-duty tasks like simulations and 3D graphics while also reducing power consumption. In 2014, Darwesh developed a solution for hardware-accelerated path tracing after witnessing the lengthy rendering times for visual effects in movies. This breakthrough laid the groundwork for Bolt Graphics as the demand for cinema-quality visual effects grew and existing solutions lagged in performance and efficiency. Bolt Graphics’ mission is to revolutionize the tech landscape by addressing the increasing power consumption and costs associated with HPC workloads. Bolt is building Zeus, a GPU for rendering, HPC, and gaming that supports expandable memory, on-board ethernet, and can act as a standalone PC. Today, Darwesh continues to drive Bolt Graphics forward, constantly asking, “Why do we do it this way?” and “How can we do it better?” His vision for a more efficient and environmentally sustainable approach to technology continues to challenge the status quo and inspire innovation across the tech industry.  Yanpei-Cao ### Building the Interactive Future: The Full-Stack Evolution of 3D Generative AI and World Models ## Sponsored Keynote by Tripo AI: Dr. Yanpei Cao The future of interactive media requires a fundamental shift: Moving from manually crafted environments to worlds generated on the fly by the imaginations of millions. Tripo’s core mission is to make this massive-scale, user-generated creation a reality. But to unlock this, we must rethink the entire generative pipeline, spanning from robust individual asset generation to the simulation of completely dynamic environments. In this deep-dive keynote, Tripo’s chief scientist and research scientists will share the unvarnished journey of building a generative ecosystem from the ground up. We will explore how Tripo scaled from preliminary fundamental research to a robust infrastructure currently serving millions of creators. The panel will first trace the rapid evolution of the generative landscape by dissecting Tripo’s full-stack approach to 3D generation. Through live demonstrations, the team will highlight key breakthroughs in geometry, topology, texturing, and rigging. These showcases will detail how we are bridging the gap between fundamental AI and graphics research and production-ready pipelines. However, generating individual assets is only half the equation. To unlock truly interactive user-generated content, the field is rapidly expanding into Generative World Models. The team will share our latest research in this space and explain why we believe World Models will serve as the core engine for next-generation content. Because they simulate physics, dynamics, and continuous interaction without being strictly bound by traditional spatial constraints, these models offer a fundamentally new way to create. Through our latest demos, we will showcase what happens when AI steps beyond creating isolated objects and begins simulating living realities. *Tripo AI’s SIGGRAPH 2026 Sponsored Keynote Presentation takes place Wednesday, 22 July at 2:30 pm PDT.* *Image credit: Headshot by Tripo AI* **Speakers:** Dr. Yanpei Cao, Chief Scientist, Tripo AI; Dr. Yuanchen Guo, Research Scientist, Tripo AI; Dr. Zixin Zou, Research Scientist, Tripo AI; Dr. Yingtian Liu, Research Scientist, Tripo AI; Dr. Biao Zhang, Research Scientist, Tripo AI About the Speakers **Dr. Yanpei Cao** is the chief scientist of Tripo AI. A pioneer in 3D Generative AI, he has architected foundational open-source frameworks and large-scale models that help power modern 3D content creation. Today, he drives the core technology behind the Tripo platform, empowering millions of users and hundreds of enterprise clients to seamlessly generate production-ready 3D assets at scale. A recognized leader in the computer graphics and vision communities, his ongoing research focuses on continuously pushing the boundaries of full-stack 3D Generative AI and advancing the fundamental science behind interactive Generative World Models. **Yuan-Chen Guo**, **Zi-Xin Zou**, **Ying-Tian Liu**, and **Biao Zhang** are lead research scientists at Tripo, with Dr. Zhang also serving as a professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University. Together, they architect the fundamental science and production infrastructure behind Tripo’s full-stack Generative AI platform. Their collective research focuses on overcoming the industry’s hardest generative bottlenecks, directly translating foundational AI breakthroughs into robust, production-ready creator tools. As active open-source contributors and frequent authors in top-tier venues like SIGGRAPH, their work drives the core models that serve millions of creators globally.