Peter Schröder, Professor of Computer Science and Applied and Computational Mathematics, is the new Deputy Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. "I look forward to working with Peter over the next several years as we continue with our quest to remain a unique collaborative community of isolated singularities that sets a compelling model as a research and teaching institution," says Chair Ares Rosakis.
Professor Schröder brings a wealth of experience to the post, having served as Executive Officer of Computer Science and having led the building committee that oversaw the design and construction of the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center for Information Science and Technology. Peter is also a world expert in the area of wavelet based methods for computer graphics. He helped pioneer the use of fast wavelet solvers for illumination computations and co-developed the first practical spherical wavelet transform. His current research interests are in the design of efficient and reliable algorithms for problems in computer graphics. These range from geometric modeling (effective methods to model the shape of objects) to animation (simulation of physical phenomena such as the deformation of cloth). His emphasis is on an area known as Discrete Differential Geometry. Its goals are to rebuild the foundations of classical differential geometry in a discrete setting which makes it immediately useful for computation.