As Chair of the London ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter, Kate oversees the activities of the chapters, and reaches out to potential partners, sponsors and event opportunities.
Kate is a 3D Artist based in London working at The Mill. She started working in production in 2011 since then she worked on various projects from full CG stereoscopic Feature film, TV series, Advertising and short films. Her passion is for Lighting & Rendering.
She was born in the Czech Republic, where she graduated with a Master of Art in Fine Arts.
Kate is also a member of the External Relations Committee at ACM SIGGRAPH Organisation.
As Vice-Chair of the London ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter, Boyan oversees the activities of the chapter, and reaches out to potential partners, sponsors and event opportunities.
Born in Bulgaria, Boyan has graduated with First-Class Honours in 3D Animation from the University of Hertfordshire. Boyan started at Blue-Zoo Animation as a Lighting and Compositing Artist on a children’s TV show for the BBC. Following that Boyan joined the team at MPC to be on the new Lion King for Disney.
Currently Boyan is at Dneg working throughout the different production departments as a Lighting Artist.
As Secretary, Jessica handles regular chapter administration tasks as well as reaching out to potential partners, sponsors and event opportunities
Born in England, Jessica is currently working as a Generalist TD at MPC Film. She began her career by graduating with a first class degree at the University of Hertfordshire, before moving into the 3D industry where she worked on projects based around 3D shorts/adverts, a Nickelodeon series and more recently a Netflix series at. Her main skills focus on Lighting, Rendering and Compositing, but with solid knowledge of other areas.
Ioanna is a multi-disciplined CG artist, graduated from Bournemouth University in 2016. She’s currently based in London she works for INK, an award-winning creative studio specialising in design-led CGI and animation. With a love for all things CGI, since joining INK in 2016 she has created work for iconic brands such as Honda, Audi, Aston Martin, Nespresso. Ioanna is passionate about bringing like-minded people together through their passion for CGI and animation. She is also a member of the board at 3DS London.
After growing up in the UK loving movies, then graduating from the Visual Effects course at
the University of Hertfordshire. Chris is now a Digital Compositor in the London VFX
community; who’s past shows include Star Wars, Jurassic World, DreamWorks and more!
When not making pretty-pixel-producing tools. He’ll be found orbiting the nearest coffee
machine.
Brenda Ximena is a Spanish 3D animator currently based in the UK. Inspired by her family, where design, art, and music played an important influence while growing up. Brenda Ximena completed with first class and distinction respectively: BA (Hons) Computer Visualisation and Animation and MA 3D Computer Animation at the National Centre of Computer Animation (NCCA) Bournemouth University (UK). She took part in Woman in Animation (WIA) apprenticeship, she has been a mentee at Access VFX and is currently a 3D Junior Animator at Blue Zoo Animation Studios in London.
Ere is a Canadian animator who has been working in feature films for 3 years. He has
worked at renowned studios such as Sony, Pixar, MPC, and DNEG. Ere’s greatest passion
is in character animation and performance. He currently works as a Senior Animator at
Jellyfish Pictures in London.
Simone Giampaolo is a director and animator from Switzerland with an insatiable appetite for storytelling and humour.
In 2013 he graduated with Distinction from the BA(Hons) Computer Animation Arts course at the National Centre for Computer Animation in Bournemouth (UK). Between 2014 and January 2018 Simone has been working as animation director and CG generalist in the commercial department at Blue-Zoo Animation (based in London, UK) on a multitude of projects for clients such as Cartoon Network, Disney, LEGO, Nickelodeon, Marvel, Lucasfilm and BBC.
He is now represented as Animation Director by world-famous studio Aardman Animations.
Matt completed a foundation diploma in Animation at UCA Farnham before finding his penchant for the 2D side of things and furthered his studies at the University Of Hertfordshire, where he graduated from the Visual Effects for Film and Television Degree. He has been freelancing at Happy Finish UK and Milk vfx, working on 2D, 360 and VR projects.
Fiona is one of the co-founders of the chapter. As a senior R&D development producer at BBC R&D, Fiona oversees projects whose work helps invent the future and move beyond the state of the art in media and broadcast. Her expertise is in interactive and immersive media. Fiona trained in 3D and animation at Escape Studios, and Animation Mentor, and holds PhD in Electronic Engineering (focusing on VR and 3D animation), plus an MSc in Virtual Reality, BSc in Computing and BSc in Economics. Fiona has also co-authored research papers on virtual reality, broadcast media enhancements and a book on Autodesk Maya.
Sullivan is one of the co-founders and original Treasurer of the chapter from 2014-2016. He works as a Digital Matte Painter and Environment Artist at Oscar winning Double Negative VFX.
Sullivan has been involved in the production of many high profile feature films, such as Interstellar, Terminator Genisys, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and more.
Born in Portugal from Brazilian parents, Rodrigo first tried traditional hand-drawn animation when he was attending the Fine-Art University in Lisbon. He found his love for the craft and went on to study CG character animation at Animation Mentor.
He has since worked as a Character & Creature Animator at Illumination Macguff, Framestore and has recently joined Industrial Light & Magic in London.
Rodrigo joined the SIGGRAPH board team in the Summer of 2017
Thank you to the following wonderful people who have helped the London ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter before moving onto new things!
Almu Redondo
Pedram Razi
Bernhard Eiser
Romain Joly
Iestyn Roberts
AJ Christensen
Benoit Leveau
Nicolas Rigaud
Youen Leclerc
Paddy Finn
FUTURE BOARD MEMBERS?
If you are interested in helping out as a volunteer Board Member, let us know via our multiple channels or at an event!
Professionally, Benoit works at Double Negative as a VFX Artist with a focus on animation. He has a passion for film making and creating audio-visual experiences. Benoit is originally from France and grew up in China, but is now based in London. Benoit was the instigator in founding the London chapter, and the original Chair.
As the London ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter is Benoit’s baby in many ways, he will always have a soft spot for it and will forever help it grow, even if he has recently stepped back from leadership roles.
Ellen’s expertise is in 3D animation, with a passion for character animation, acting and performance, along with a strong technical engineering background, and project management skills. Ellen began her professional career in Siemens producing technical animations. She later moved into Character Animation at Tinyisland Productions, where she eventually became an Animation Supervisor and Head of Department for Animation.
Ellen has a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering, and Masters in Multimedia Design and Digital Media, along with a certificate in Advanced Character Animation from Animation Mentor. She also has extensive experience training and mentoring animation students, and professional animation teams during production.
Sonja is one of the co-founders, and former secretary (2014-2016) of the chapter. In addition to regular chapter administration tasks, she also designed the majority of the chapter’s event posters during her time as secretary.
Professionally Sonja works as a Motion Graphics Designer with a focus on title design, flat graphic animation, and has a passion for branding. Her previous experience spans across various fields within the computer graphics industry such as games development, layout design and web development.
Sonja is originally from Slovakia and grew up in Germany. Sonja’s career has now taken her to Munich where she continues her activities in the Munich ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter. Sonja also keeps in regular contact to help out the London ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter when possible.
Sean is one of the co-founders of the chapter. With over 6 years industry experience in both TV & Film, Sean has worked in various positions such as Matchmove/Layout, Motion Capture and Effects Technical Director. His main interests include Effects, Motion Graphics and technologies that present art in a new and exciting way like VR and Projection Mapping.
Sean has now moved onto projects out of the country, but we hope he will return to us again one day.
Francois-Maxence (known as FM), was one of our earliest Board Members (2014-2015), and was instrumental in establishing the chapter.
FM organised several of our initial events. These events helped to solidify us as a professional group capable of hosting high-profile events of interest to a wide-range of industry professionals. FM has moved on to projects in other places, but is welcome back any time!
