Michael E. Papka named director of UIC’s Electronic Visualization Laboratory

Michael E. Papka

Professor Michael E. Papka has been appointed director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory  (EVL), an interdisciplinary research space specializing in collaborative visualization, virtual reality, visual data science, and advanced computing and networking infrastructure.

Papka will be the fifth EVL director since its founding in 1973.

“I was part of the EVL community early in my research career, and it greatly influenced my approach to collaborations and set me on my path as a working scientist,” said Papka. “The original EVL vision remains relevant today, with interdisciplinary research being more important than ever. I am honored to have the opportunity to lead EVL.”

EVL was created by computer scientist Tom DeFanti and artist and physicist Dan Sandin as a joint program between UIC’s College of Engineering and computer science department and its School of Art and Design. In 1991, Sandin and DeFanti conceived and developed the CAVE virtual reality (VR) theater in collaboration with graduate students, one of whom was Michael Papka.

Papka joined UIC’s computer science faculty in 2022. In addition to EVL, he is also a member of UIC’s SPEAR Laboratory and Honors College. He is also a founding co-director of the George Crabtree Institute for Discovery and Sustainability, a new joint institute between UIC and Argonne National Laboratory. He holds a joint appointment at Argonne National Laboratory, where he is a senior scientist and is deputy associate laboratory director for Computing, Environment and Life Sciences. He is also the director of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF).

At ALCF, Papka leads one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s premier facilities for open science. He has spearheaded numerous efforts to build and deploy world-class computing capabilities for open science, notably advancing AI and large-scale data analysis. Under his leadership, ALCF recently joined the exascale era with the development of the Aurora supercomputer, which is expected to have more than 2 exaflops of peak computing power.

EVL offered the first graduate program in the country leading to an MFA in electronic visualization or an MS or PhD in computer science with a specialization in visualization. Papka earned a master’s degree from UIC in 1994. He later earned an MS and PhD in computer science from the University of Chicago.

“I look forward to seeing the continuation of EVL’s successes under Mike’s leadership,” said Robert Sloan, professor and department head of the computer science department.