Prof Markus Gross is Professor of Computer Science and Head of the Computer Graphics Laboratory at ETH Zurich and the Vice President of Research and Director of DisneyResearch|Studios. He joined ETH Zurich’s Computer Science faculty in 1994. His research interests include physically based modelling, computer animation, immersive displays and video technology. Before joining Disney, Prof Gross was Head of the Institute of Computational Sciences at ETH Zurich. He received an MSc in electrical and computer engineering and a PhD in computer graphics and image analysis from Saarland University in Germany in 1986 and 1989 respectively.

Prof Gross serves on the boards of numerous international research institutes, societies and governmental organizations. He was the recipient of the EUROGRAPHICS Outstanding Technical Contributions Award in 2010 and the Swiss ICT Champions Award in 2011. He is a fellow of the ACM and the EUROGRAPHICS Association and a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He was awarded the Konrad Zuse Medal from the German Computer Science Society in 2013 and the Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize and the IEEE Visualization Career Award in 2015. In 2013 and 2019, he received a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He is a co-founder of Cyfex AG, Novodex AG, LiberoVision AG, Dybuster AG, Gimalon AG, Kapanu AG, Perceptiko AG, Propulsion Academy AG, Arbrea Labs AG, Nanocorp AG and Animatico AG.