Member Profile: Baoquan Chen
1. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
I am a Professor at Peking University. I have been a professor in both the U.S. and China for more than 25 years.
2. What was your first job?
My first job was as a researcher at an institute in Peking University, right after obtaining my master degree from Tsinghua University.
3. Where did you complete your formal education?
I completed my bachelor and master studies at Xidian University and Tsinghua University, respectively, both majoring in Electrical Engineering, then completed my PhD studies in Computer Science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
4. How did you first get involved with ACM SIGGRAPH?
I attended SIGGRAPH’98 in Orlando, Florida.
5. What is your favorite memory of a SIGGRAPH conference?
Party, party, yet another party. At the end of the night, you lost your voice, feeling exhausted and excited at the same time.
6. Describe a project that you would like to share with the ACM SIGGRAPH community.
Smartboxes: we vehicle-mounted a mobile laser scanner and scanned hundreds of miles of street in the Shenzhen city. Next, we discovered how to use boxes and their compound shapes to reconstruct the buildings.
7. If you could have dinner with one living or non-living person, who would it be and why?
Al Pacino, whose iconic final speech in the movie Scent of a Woman has a lasting inspiration to me.
8. What is something most people don’t know about you?
I have run a full Marathon twice, and half Marathon over a dozen times.
9. From which single individual have you learned the most in your life? What did they teach you?
My PhD advisor Professor Arie Kaufman from Stony Brook University. He taught me through his actions everything about being an academic and being an avid volunteer of the professional community.
10. Is there someone in particular who has influenced your decision to work with ACM SIGGRAPH?
Yes, Professor Alyn Rockwood.
11. What can you point to in your career as your proudest moment?
Chairing the ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2014 conference in Shenzhen.