Meet the Team
Lisa Avila, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Business Development
Company Leadership
Compliance and Audit
Internal Communications
Kitware New York
Clifton Park, NY
Service at Kitware
Ph.D. in Computer Science
State University of New York at Stony Brook
M.S. in Computer Science
State University of New York at Stony Brook
B.S. in Computer Science
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Dr. Lisa Sobierajski Avila is Kitware’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to serving as CEO, Dr. Avila was Vice President of Commercial Operations and a lead technical developer at Kitware. Dr. Avila oversaw Kitware’s commercial offerings including support and custom development contracts, training courses, and books. She was also responsible for Kitware’s corporate communications and public relations efforts, and she coordinated the content for the corporate web site as well as the various community sites supporting open source projects such as the Visualization Toolkit (VTK), the Insight Toolkit (ITK), CMake and ParaView.
As a technical developer, Dr. Avila is the main architect of VTK’s volume visualization functionality, with more than fifteen years of contributions to the toolkit. She has contributed to volume rendering efforts in many scientific and medical fields ranging from seismic data exploration to radiation treatment planning. Dr. Avila is on the Program Committee for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) VisWeek and International Symposium on Computer Vision (ISCV), and she has served on the editorial board for the IEEE publication Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics and on the Visualization & Graphics Technical Committee (VGTC) Executive Committee.
Dr. Avila received her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1989, 1990, and 1994, respectively. Her focus was on global illumination models for volume rendering. Prior to joining Kitware, Dr. Avila completed a post-doctoral position at Stony Brook and then joined the General Electric (GE) Corporate Research and Development center in 1994. At GE, she continued her work in the area of volume rendering, applying these methods to both medical and industrial data. Dr. Avila began working in the area of haptics, and she developed algorithms for visualizing, modifying and feeling volumetric data. Working with GE Aircraft Engines, she led the development of a state-of-the-art application for exploration and analysis of large geometric databases.
Professional Associations & Service
Stony Brook University Industrial Advisory Board 2020 – present
Capital Region Chamber Board of Directors 2019 – present
IEEE VIS Executive Committee Chair 2017 – 2021
IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee 2017 – 2021
- IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications Editorial Board 2013 – 2016
Publications
- A. Chaudhary, S. Jhaveri, A. Sanchez, L. Avila, K. Martin, A. Vacanti, M. Hanwell, and W. Schroeder, "Cross-Platform Ubiquitous Volume Rendering Using Programmable Shaders in VTK for Scientific and Medical Visualization," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 26-43, Mar. 2019.
- L. Avila and M. Bailey, "Art in the digital age," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 6-7, Jul. 2016. [URL]
- L. Avila and M. Bailey, "Augment your reality," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 6-7, Jan. 2016. [URL]
- M. Hanwell, K. Martin, A. Chaudhary, and L. Avila, "The Visualization Toolkit (VTK): Rewriting the rendering code for modern graphics cards," SoftwareX, vol. 1-2, pp. 9-12, Sep. 2015. [URL]
- L. Avila and M. Bailey, "High Tech @ Home," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 8-9, May 2015. [URL]
- L. Avila and M. Bailey, "The Wearable Revolution," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 104-104, Mar. 2015. [URL]
- L. Avila and M. Bailey, "Advanced Display Technologies," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 96-96, Jan. 2015. [URL]
- L. Encarnacao, Y. Chuang, A. Stork, D. Kasik, T. Rhyne, L. Avila, J. Kohlhammer, L. Encarnacao, J. LaViola, M. Tory, J. Dill, G. Domik, G. Owen, and P. Wong, "Future Directions in Computer Graphics and Visualization: From CG&A's Editorial Board," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 20-32, Jan. 2015. [URL]
- L. Avila and M. Bailey, "Virtual Reality for the Masses," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 103-104, Sep. 2014. [URL]
- S. Jhaveri, A. Chaudhary, and L. Avila, "Volume rendering improvements in VTK," Kitware Source, no. 31, Oct. 2014.
- L. Avila and M. Bailey, "From real to digital, and vice versa," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 80-c3, 2014.
- K. Moreland, L. Avila, and L. Fisk, "Parallel unstructured volume rendering in ParaView," in IS&T International Symposium on Electronic Imaging, 2007. [URL]
- W. Schroeder, L. Avila, K. Martin, W. Hoffman, and C. Law, The VTK User's Guide. Kitware, 2006.
- W. Schroeder, K. Martin, B. Lorensen, L. Sobierajski, R. Avila, and C. Law, Visualization Toolkit: An Object-Oriented Approach to 3D Graphics, 4th. Kitware, 2006.
- K. Martin, L. Ibáñez, L. Avila, S. Barré, and J. Kaspersen, "Integrating segmentation methods from the Insight Toolkit into a visualization application," Medical Image Analysis, vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 579-593, Dec. 2005. [URL]
- H. Pfister, B. Lorensen, C. Bajaj, G. Kindlmann, W. Schroeder, L. Avila, K. Raghu, R. Machiraju, and J. Lee, "The transfer function bake-off," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 16-22, 2001. [URL]
- W. Schroeder, L. Avila, and W. Hoffman, "Visualizing with VTK: A tutorial," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 20-27, Oct. 2000. [URL]
- C. Law, L. Sobierajski Avila, and W. Schroeder, "Application of path planning and visualization for industrial-design and maintainability-analysis," in Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium: International Symposium on Product Quality and Integrity, 1998. [URL]
- L. Sobierajski and W. Schroeder, "Interactive visualization of aircraft and power generation engines," in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Visualization, 1997. [URL]
- R. Avila and L. Sobierajski, "A haptic interaction method for volume visualization," in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Visualization, 1996. [URL]
- R. Avila and L. Sobierajski, "Haptic interaction utilizing a volumetric representation," in Proceedings of the PHANToM User's Group Workshop, 1996.
- L. Sobierajski, R. Avila, D. O'Malley, S. Wang, and A. Kaufman, "Visualization of calcium activity in nerve cells," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 55-61, Jul. 1995. [URL]
- A. Kaufman and L. Sobierajski, "Continuum Volume Display," in Computer Visualization: Graphics Techniques for Engineering and Scientific Analysis. CRC Press, 1995, pp. 171-202.
- L. Sobierajski and R. Avila, "A hardware acceleration method for volumetric ray tracing," in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Visualization, 1995. [URL]
- R. Avila, L. Sobierajski, and A. Kaufman, "Visualizing nerve cells," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 11-13, Sep. 1994. [URL]
- L. Sobierajski, "Global Illumination Models For Volume Rendering," Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1994.
- R. Avila, T. He, L. Hong, A. Kaufman, H. Pfister, C. Silva, L. Sobierajski, and S. Wang, "VolVis: a diversified volume visualization system," in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Visualization, 1994. [URL]
- L. Sobierajski and A. Kaufman, "Volumetric ray tracing," in Proceedings of the Symposium on Volume Visualization, 1994. [URL]
- L. Sobierajski, D. Cohen, A. Kaufman, R. Yagel, and D. Acker, "A fast display method for volumetric data," The Visual Computer, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 116-124, Feb. 1993. [URL]
- A. Kaufman, L. Sobierajski, R. Avila, and T. He, "Navigation and Animation in a Volume Visualization System," in Models and Techniques in Computer Animation. Springer Japan, 1993, pp. 64-74. [URL]
- B. Burbach, R. Avila, L. Sobierajski, A. Kaufman, and P. Adams, "The Living and the Dead: Interactive Visualization of Nerve Cells," in Society for Neuroscience Abstract, 1993.
- R. Avila, L. Sobierajski, and A. Kaufman, "Towards a comprehensive volume visualization system," in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Visualization, 1992. [URL]
