Bernd Bickel

Bernd Bickel is a Professor for Computational Design at ETH Zurich. He is a computer scientist interested in computer graphics and its overlap into robotics, computer vision, machine learning, material science, and digital fabrication. His main objective is to push the boundaries of how digital content can be efficiently created, simulated, and reproduced.

Bernd obtained his Master's degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich in 2006. For his PhD studies, Bernd joined the group of Markus Gross who is a professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich and the director of Disney Research Zurich. From 2011-2012, Bernd was a visiting professor at TU Berlin, and in 2012 he became a research scientist and research group leader at Disney Research. From 2015-2023, Bernd was a professor at IST Austria.

Bernd's work focuses on three closely related challenges: developing (1) novel modeling and simulation methodologies, (2) efficient representation and design algorithms for materials, 3D geometry, and functional objects, and (3) custom measurement systems and data-driven techniques for bridging the gap between the real and virtual world. Recent work includes: theoretical foundations and practical algorithms for measuring and modeling the deformation behavior of soft tissue; simulating and reproducing fundamental properties, such as elasticity, surface reflectance, and subsurface scattering; and computational design systems for efficiently creating functional artifacts such as soft robots, programmable materials, and mechanical systems.

Awards

2019 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Technical Achievement Award
2017 ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award
2016 ERC Starting Grant
2015 Microsoft Visual Computing Award
2012 EUROGRAPHICS Best PhD Thesis
2011 ETH Medal for outstanding dissertation

Professional Activities

Conference co-founder ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication
Co-organizer Dagstuhl seminar on Computational Aspects of Fabrication, 2014, 2018
Technical papers co-chair for Pacific Graphics 2016
SIGGRAPH papers committee 2012, 2013, 2015, 2018
Associate Editor, ACM Transactions on Graphics 
 

Funding

ERC PoC Automold
ERC Starting Grant Materializable
ITN Grant DISTRO
EU Grant SOMA

Contact

Bernd Bickel
ETH Zürich
Professur für Computational Design
HIT H 41.3
Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 27
8093 Zurich
SWITZERLAND
E-mail: bickelb AT ethz.ch