Paul Debevec is the associate director of graphics research and a research associate professor at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies. His research papers and computer animations have introduced new image-based modeling, rendering, and lighting techniques for visual effects and influenced key sequences in films such as the Matrix series, X-Men, and Speed Racer. Digital face scanning techniques based on his light stage systems have been leveraged to create realistic digital actors in the Spider Man films, King Kong, Superman Returns, Hancock, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He received SIGGRAPH's Significant New Researcher Award in 2001.