IIT Kharagpur Alumni Parag Havaldar Wins ‘Technical Oscar’

IIT Kharagpur alumni Parag Havaldar has won the prestigious Technical Achievement Award (the Scientific & Technical Awards prize), popularly called the ‘Technical Oscar’, awarded by the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences.
Havaldar, who graduated from IIT-Kgp in 1991 and later did his PhD in computer vision and graphics from the University of Southern California, is honoured for the development of expression-based facial performance-capture technology at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

According to the Academy, “This pioneering system has enabled large-scale use of animation rig-based facial performance-capture for motion pictures, combining solutions for tracking, stabilization, solving and animator-controllable curve editing.”
Havaldar’s popular works include ‘Watchmen’, ‘Green Lantern’, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’, ‘Beowulf’ and ‘Hancock’.