This week on 8111, Dan Goldman. Dan grew up in Colorado where his mom worked as a teacher and his dad, a physicist. He enjoyed drama as a young person and acted in plays in both jr. high and high school. When it came time to head off to college he chose Brown for a degree in Theatre.

Fate intervened his freshman year when he was assigned an academic advisor who was a well known computer science professor from the School of Engineering. By the time his sophomore year rolled around, Dan had transferred to the computer science program at Stanford and decided to pursue drama on the side.

In 1992, his sophomore year at Stanford, he landed an internship working in the Computer Graphics division at Industrial Light and Magic. That internship later turned into a full-time job where Dan worked for the next 12 years, eventually as a CG Supervisor. Dan’s credits include; The Flintstones, Mission Impossible, Men in Black, The Phantom Menace, Galaxy Quest, & Attack of the Clones, among others.

Dan then decided to return to grad school for his PhD in computer science and enrolled at University of Washington. He worked part-time at ILM while also working on his dissertation. When school ended he went to work at Adobe Research for the next decade where he helped develop numerous projects including what would become “content-aware fill” in Photoshop.

Today Dan works at Google on the team developing the exciting Project Starline. It was a blast to reconnect with Dan and hear his story. Talking with Dan you can’t help but admire his boundless curiosity & enthusiasm for tackling complex problems. His drive and positive outlook are infectious.