Saty Raghavachary

Biography

Dr. Saty Raghavachary is an Associate Professor of CS Practice at the CS Dept, where he teaches courses on computer graphics (CG), databases, search engines, data science, and introductory programming. From 2004-2014 he was a part-time senior lecturer in CS, during which time he taught graphics and animation courses.

Before joining USC full-time, Saty was a Designated Support Specialist at Autodesk Inc., makers of Maya, Softimage, 3DS Max, AutoCAD and several other industry-leading software tools. Prior to joining Autodesk, Saty spent 16 wonderful years at DreamWorks Feature Animation (with screen credits in 20 movies, including Puss in Boots, How to Train Your Dragon, Kung Fu Panda and Shrek4), where he developed CG software tools in the R&D department, trained incoming artists on the tools and pipeline, and headed up the training dept. Prior to that, he was Software Manager at MetroLight Studios, one of the pioneering visual effects studios in Hollywood during the late 80s and early 90s.

Saty has published two popular books on RenderMan, the CG industry’s leading rendering software. He is working on a third book, on Maya Python. Saty also gives talks to schools and colleges in the LA area (eg. Cal Lutheran, LMU, GCC) on animation production and CG.

At The Ohio State University, Saty obtained three MS degrees and PhD, and conducted postdoctoral research. He is a member of ACM, IEEE (Computer Society), ASEE and American Mensa.