Hansong's Resume

Hansong Zhang
hansongzhang@yahoo.com
(408) 390-6723

Areas of Expertise

Software, architecture, and algorithms for real-time computer graphics, games, computer vision/pattern recognition, video, and scalable multicore computing

Education

1995-1998 Ph.D., Department of Computer Science, UNC-Chapel Hill. Dissertation and publications addressed fundamental problems in computer graphics (visibility determination and image-based rendering). Algorithms invented in thesis was later commercialized by Hybrid Graphics, a Finnish company (acquired by nVidia in 2006). List of publications

1992-1995 M.S., Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Research and thesis centered on distributed volume rendering for medical and industrial applications. See link above for publications.

Experience

2007-Present Vice President of Technology at Roblox Corporation. Roblox is a online multi-player environment for user-created games, differentiated by its powerful and easy-to-use game creation software (Lego-style modeling, powerful behavior scripting, real-time physics, and transparent/inherent multiplayer support). Roblox has enjoyed rapid growth as can be glimpsed here.

2003-2007 Senior Technical Lead at Silicon Graphics, Inc., a maker of parallel computers. Report to CTO of the company and lead the Future Technologies Group, an inter-disciplinary effort for the cross-pollination among parallel computing, graphics, and digital media. Work in this period includes:

• Parallel computing for video codecs and the application of pattern recognition techniques to video; architecture-specific optimizations of compression algorithms and standards
• With company founder Rocky Rhodes, explored computer graphics on massively parallel computers (presentation). The project includes:
  
• Co-founded the Manta open-source parallel ray-tracer with University of Utah
• Rendering optimization for multicore CPUs (under Intel grants)
• Parallel system architecture issues and solutions in the context of large (Tera-scale) datasets
  
• Load-balancing and culling architecture for parallel rendering on multiple graphics cards
• Studied web-related technologies, server and client, e.g. LAMP, Flash, scripting languages
• Filed 4 patents

2002-2003 Contributed to nVidia's Cg, world's first language for real-time cinematic special effects.

1999-2002 Graphics Architect at Intrinsic Graphics, Inc., a producer of cross-platform game software for Xbox, PS2, GameCube and PCs.

• Responsible for the design and implementation of Intrinsic's Scene Graph system, the core technology for the company. The design remains the most advanced architecture today.
• Through acquisition, the technology went on to thrive at Vicarious Vision, Activision, and now Electronic Arts. It has been used by several dozens of published games, as well as Google Earth (formerly Keyhole).
• Filed two patents.