Interactive Resume
Here is a summary of my background, experience, and achievements in an interactive resume format. Click on items with a + next to them to show more information.
Education
University of California at Davis - Davis, CA
Ph.D. in Computer Science (2012 - 2017)
Advisor: Dr. Kwan-Liu Ma
California Institute of Technology - Pasadena, CA
B.S. in Physics(2008 - 2012)
Experience
Walt Disney Animation Studios - Burbank, CA
Production Technology(2018 - present)
Sr. Software Engineer
I currently work at Walt Disney Animation Studios working in Production Technology on the Hair & Cloth team to develop new tools, workflows, and capabilities motivated by the film production needs of the studio, ranging from procedural generation for asset creation to physically-based simulation for shot production.
University of California at Davis - Davis, CA
Visualization & Interface Design Innovation Group (VIDI)(2012 - 2018)
Graduate Student Researcher/Postdoctoral Scholar (Advisor: Dr. Kwan-Liu Ma)
As a graduate student, I worked with the VIDI group on research in scientific visualization. After obtaining my Ph.D, I continued as a postdoctoral scholar furthering my own research and overseeing other projects and graduate students. Please see my research for more information.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) - Gaithersburg, MD
High Performance Computing and Visualization Group(Summers 2014, 2016)
Graduate Research Assistant (Advisor: Dr. Judith Terrill)
I spent two summers working at NIST as a graduate researcher developing visualization tools for use on both desktop PCs and in an immersive virtual reality environment. My work focused on helping researchers understand the chemical processes that occur in cement hydration.
Sandia National Laboratory - Livermore, CA
Combustion Research Facility(Summer 2012)
Guest Researcher (Advisor: Dr. Jacqueline Chen)
Just prior to starting graduate school, I spent one summer at Sandia National Laboratory as a guest researcher. I worked on data management and analysis problems related to understanding the interplay between field and particle data from large-scale combustion simulations.
California Institute of Technology - Pasadena, CA
Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA)(2011 - 2012)
Research Assistant (Advisor: Dr. George Djorgovski)
I spent my final year at Caltech working as a part of MICA investigating how virtual worlds can be used to study and collaborate on data in the field of astrophysics. I was in charge of setting up and managing a server hosting a virtual world visited by international researchers.
Ph 7: Physics Laboratory in Atomic and Nuclear Physics(Spring 2011, 2012)
Teaching Assistant
For two quarters, I worked as a teaching assistant for a laboratory class in atomic and nuclear physics. I graded assignments, led instructional sessions, and helped oversee students and lab equipment during class time. Course material included studies of the Balmer series of hydrogen and deuterium, the decay of radioactive nuclei, absorption of X-rays and gamma rays, etc.
Institute of Quantum Information (IQI)(Summer 2010)
Research Assistant (Advisor: Dr. John Preskill)
I spent a summer working as a part of IQI studying error correction in quantum computing. I focused on Bacon-Shor codes and their applicability to fault-tolerant quantum memory by simulating their behavior under different error rates and code block sizes.
Bellan Plasma Group(Summer 2009)
Research Assistant (Advisor: Dr. Paul Bellan)
I worked as a part of the Bellan Plasma Group for one summer studying the magnetohydrodynamics of plasmas. My research involved measuring the momenta of spheromaks and included the design and construction of a measurement apparatus that could interact with plasmas in a high-vacuum environment.
Princeton University - Princeton, NJ
PRISM Imaging and Analysis Center (IAC)(Summers 2006 - 2008)
Research Assistant and 3D Animator (Advisor: Dr. Nan Yao)
I spent several summers working at PRISM IAC studying electromagnetic lensing in focused ion beam microscopes. I focused on designing and simulating methods of correcting spherical and chromatic aberrations in such devices. I also generated 3D animations of various scientific processes including medical stent placement, nacre growth, and the piezoelectric effect.
Fellowships and Awards
IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium - Best Paper Honorable Mention(2020)
IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium - Visual Data Storytelling Contest Winner(2018)
IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium - Best Paper Award Winner(2017)
National Physical Science Consortium (NPSC) Graduate Fellowship(2012 - 2017)
IEEE LDAV Symposium - Two Best Paper Honorable Mentions(2015)
IEEE Scientific Visualization Contest - Honorable Mentions(2014, 2015)
Oscar Buneman Award for Visualization of Plasmas - Winner(2013)
Flintridge Foundation Undergraduate Research Fellowship(2011)
Siemens Foundation Undergraduate Research Fellowship(2010)
Lester Lees Aeronautics Undergraduate Research Fellowship(2009)
Software and Programming
Languages: C/C++, Python, HTML/JavaScript/CSS, MEL, VEX
Frameworks/APIs: OpenGL/WebGL, Open MPI, OpenMP, Tbb, Qt, OpenCL, CUDA, OpenSceneGraph, jQuery, D3.js, three.js
Modeling and Animation: Maya, Houdini, Blender, 3ds Max, Inventor, SolidWorks
Other: MATLAB, Mathematica, Photoshop, Windows, Linux, Mac
Publications
Y. Ye, F. Sauer, K.-L. Ma, K. Aditya, and J. Chen. A User-centered Design Study in Scientific Visualization Targeting Domain Experts. Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on, 26(6): 2192-2203, Jan. 2020. DOI: /10.1109/TVCG.2020.297052
T. Neuroth, F. Sauer and K.-L. Ma. An Interactive Visualization System for Large Sets of Phase Space Trajectories. Computer Graphics Forum, 38(3): 297-309, July 2019. DOI: 10.1111/cgf.13690
F. Sauer and K.-L. Ma. Multifaceted 4D Feature Segmentation and Extraction in Point and Field-based Datasets. arXiv preprint (CoRR), arXiv:1903.12294, Mar. 2019. arXiv: 1903.12294
A. Preston, Y. Li, F. Sauer and K.-L. Ma. Visual Analysis of Simulation Uncertainty Using Cost-Effective Sampling. In Large Data Analysis and Visualization (LDAV), 2018 IEEE 6th Symposium on, pages 1-11, Oct. 2018. DOI: 10.1109/LDAV.2018.8739182
F. Sauer and K.-L. Ma. Spatio-temporal Feature Exploration in Combined Particle/Volume Reference Frames. Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on, 23(6): 1624-1635, June 2017. DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2017.2674918
T. Neuroth, F. Sauer, W. Wang, S. Ethier, C.-S. Chang, and K.-L. Ma. Scalable Visualization of Time-varying Multi-parameter Distributions Using Spatially Organized Histograms. Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on, 23(12): 2599-2612, Dec. 2016. DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2016.2642103
F. Sauer, T. Neuroth, J. Chu, and K.-L. Ma. Audience-Targeted Design Considerations for Effective Scientific Storytelling. Computing in Science & Engineering, 18(6): 68-76, Nov. 2016. DOI: 10.1109/MCSE.2016.100
F. Sauer, J. Xie, and K.-L. Ma. A Combined Eulerian-Lagrangian Data Representation for Large-scale Applications. Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on, 23(10): 2248-2261, Oct. 2016. DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2016.2620975
Y. Ye, T. Neuroth, F. Sauer, K.-L. Ma, G. Borghesi, A. Konduri, H. Kolla, and J. Chen. In Situ Generated Probability Distribution Functions for Interactive Post Hoc Visualization and Analysis. In Large Data Analysis and Visualization (LDAV), 2016 IEEE 6th Symposium on, pages 65-74, Oct. 2016. DOI: 10.1109/LDAV.2016.7874311
A. Preston, R. Ghods, J. Xie, F. Sauer, N. Leaf, K.-L. Ma, E. Rangel, E. Kovacs, K. Heitmann, and S. Habib. An Integrated Visualization System for Interactive Analysis of Large, Heterogeneous Cosmology Data. In 2016 IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis), pages 48-55, Apr. 2016. DOI: 10.1109/PACIFICVIS.2016.7465250
F. Sauer, Y. Zhang, W. Wang, S. Ethier, and K.-L. Ma. Visualization Techniques for Studying Large-Scale Flow Fields from Fusion Simulations. Computing in Science & Engineering, 18(2): 68-77, Mar. 2016. DOI: 10.1109/MCSE.2015.107
J. Xie, F. Sauer, and K.-L. Ma. Fast Uncertainty-driven Large-scale Volume Feature Extraction on Desktop PCs. In Large Data Analysis and Visualization (LDAV), 2015 IEEE 5th Symposium on, pages 17-24, Oct. 2015. DOI: 10.1109/LDAV.2015.7348067
T. Neuroth, F. Sauer, Weixing Wang, Stephane Ethier, and K.-L. Ma. Scalable Visualization of Discrete Velocity Decompositions Using Spatially Organized Histograms. In Large Data Analysis and Visualization (LDAV), 2015 IEEE 5th Symposium on, pages 65-72, Oct. 2015. DOI: 10.1109/LDAV.2015.7348073
F. Sauer, H. Yu, and K.-L. Ma. Trajectory-based Flow Feature Tracking in Joint Particle/Volume Datasets. Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions on, 20(12): 2565-2574, Dec. 2014 DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2014.2346423
F. Sauer, H. Yu, and K.-L. Ma. An Analytical Framework for Particle and Volume Data of Large-scale Combustion Simulations. In Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Ultrascale Visualization, UltraVis '13, pages 1:1-1:8, New York, NY, USA, 2013. ACM. DOI: 10.1145/2535571.2535590
S. G. Djorgovski, P. Hut, R. Knop, G. Longo, S. McMillan, E. Vesperini, C. Donalek, M. Graham, A. Mahabal, F. Sauer, C. White, and C. Lopes. The MICA Experiment: Astrophysics in Virtual Worlds. In Proceedings of the SLACTIONS 2012 International Research Conference on Virtual Worlds, p. 49. Vila Real, PT, 2012. arXiv: 1301.6808
N. Yao, A. K. Epstein, W. W. Liu, F. Sauer, and N. Yang. Organic–inorganic Interfaces and Spiral Growth in Nacre. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 6(33): 367-376, 2009. DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2008.0316
Abstracts/Short Papers
A. Preston, F. Sauer, R. Ghods, N. Leaf, J. Xie, and K.-L. Ma. Integrated Explorer for Cosmological Evolution. IEEE Scientific Visualization Contest, Oct. 2015. DOI: 10.1109/SciVis.2015.7429499
J. Xie, F. Sauer, H. Schroots, C. Wang, S. Wang, K.-L. Ma. SPatial Atmospheric Cloud Explorer (SPACE). IEEE Scientific Visualization Contest, Nov. 2014. Link: Short Paper
F. Sauer, Y. Zhang, W. Wang, S. Ethier, and K.-L. Ma. Visualizing Velocity Fields from Fusion Simulations using Advected Particle Trajectories. International Conference on Numerical Simulation of Plasmas, Sep. 2013. Link: Abstract
A. Cioc, S. G. Djorgovski, C. Donalek, E. Lawler, F. Sauer, G. Longo. Data Visualization Using Immersive Virtual Reality Tools. American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts, Jan. 2013. Link: Abstract
