Computer Science Alumna to present Colleges Commencement Address

Engineering at Illinois alumna Ping Fu (MS 1990, Computer Science) will return to campus this spring as College of Engineering Commencement speaker. The Commencement Ceremony will be held at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 12 in the State Farm Center (Assembly Hall).

Ping Fu, Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer, 3D Systems

Honored in 2005 by Inc. Magazineas “The Entrepreneur of the Year,” Ping Fu describes herself as “an artist and scientist whose chosen expression is business.”

In 1997, Fu co-founded Geomagic,a 3D imaging software companywhose innovative software tools are fundamentally changing the way a myriad of products are designed and manufactured worldwide. Her goal was to develop software that could take the data from 3D scanners, process it, and output it on 3D printers, doing for 3D printing what Adobe did for desktop publishing. By 1999--with Fu serving as the company’s CEO, CTO, and Chair of the Board of Directors—Geomagic had partnered with Boeing and Mattel, raising  $6.5 million in venture capital financing from Franklin Street Partners.

Engineers, designers, and artists have used Geomagic software for things ranging from streamlining the manufacture of toy dollhouses, transforming the hearing aid and dental device industries, to guaranteeing the safety of the Space Shuttle Discovery, and recreating engine manifolds for a NASCAR racing team. The innovation behind Geomagic’s technology is the rapid creation of non-uniform rational B-splines on point cloud data, which is key to digitally processing an object—a task that used to take a designer weeks to complete but can now be done in just minutes. Fu is the co-inventor on five of the patents behind this technology. On February 27, 2013, Geomagic was acquired by 3D Systems, and Fu joined 3D Systems as Chief Strategy Officer.

Before starting Geomagic, Fu was the director of visualization at National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her work there contributed to advancements in the fields of virtual reality, image processing, scientific visualization, massive storage, and user interface. In addition to working on Mosaic, the first practical internet browser, her team also developed new geometry algorithms that enabled the morphing special effects for the robot villain in the movie Terminator 2.

Among her more recent awards, she was recognized by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as an Outstanding American By Choice. In addition to serving on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the White House, she is a member of the National Council on Women in Technology, and serves on the board of directors at the Long Now Foundation.

Fu grew up in China and endured significant hardships during the Cultural Revolution. In December 2012, Fu’s incredible story of personal and business resilience, Bend Not Break, was published by Penguin. Co-authored with MeiMei Fox, the book told the stories of her life, from her early childhood in China to her experiences as an entrepreneur, including founding and leading Geomagic.
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