Nicholas Haemel

Nicholas Haemel has been involved with OpenGL for over 12 years, soon after its wide acceptance. He graduated from the Milwaukee School of Engineering with a degree in Computer Engineering and a love for embedded systems, computer hardware, and making things work. Soon after graduation he put these skills to work for the 3D drivers group at ATI, developing graphics drivers and working on new GPUs. Nick has worked for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) as a Member of the Technical Staff at in the OpenGL group focusing on driver architecture, management, design and development. Nick has contributed to the OpenGL Architecture Review Board, now part of The Khronos Group, for the past four years and has participated in defining the OpenGL 3.0 through 4.2 specifications as well as related extensions and GL Shading Language versions. In addition to OpenGL, he has contributed to OpenGL ES, WebGL, and EGL working groups. Nick now manages a 3D graphics driver team at NVIDIA, focusing on bringing cutting-edge graphics to consumers through a slightly smaller form-factor, mobile phones and tablets. Nick’s graphics career began at age 9 when he first learned to program 2D graphics using Logo Writer. After convincing his parents to purchase a state-of-the-art 286 IBM compatible PC, it immediately became the central control unit for robotic arms and other remotely programmable devices. Fast-forward 20 years and the devices being controlled are GPUs the size of a finger nail but with more than 2 Billion transistors. Nick’s interests also extend to business leadership and management, strengthened by a recent MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he now resides.