About Flip Phillips

Portrait by Roland Fleming

Formerly Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Skidmore College, Flip Phillips joined the faculty at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s MAGIC Center in 2019. His appointments span the School of Film and Animation and the Center for Imaging Science.

Career Trajectory & Interdisciplinary Roots

Phillips’ career trajectory began in the early 1980s in the school of architecture at The Ohio State University, attracted by its cross-disciplinary combination of art, design, engineering, and science. Introduced to the then-nascent world of computer graphics, he studied under computer graphics pioneer Charles Csuri at OSU's Computer Graphics Research Group (CGRG), earning his BFA in 1986.

After his undergraduate training, Phillips taught and conducted research in medical imaging and 3D shape before joining the newly constituted Pixar — a spin-off from Lucasfilm and a hothouse of computational and visual experimentation. At Pixar, Phillips served as the original ‘Animation Scientist’ and technical director, creating tools for the Pixar Image Computer and even providing live reference movement for Luxo Jr.

Returning to graduate study, serendipitous conversations with Pixar colleagues Alvy Ray Smith and Loren Carpenter, along with foundational texts by Jan Koenderink and Bela Julesz, pointed him toward visual science. He completed his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at OSU in 1997, specializing in the perception of three-dimensional shape, haptics, and surface properties.

Editorial, Memberships & Service

Phillips is a past editor of the Mathematica Journal, which focuses on computational mathematics across science, art, and modeling. He was inducted into the Visual Effects Society (VES) in 2025 and is an active member of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS). He is also honored to be associated with Project Prakash, restoring sight to congenitally blind children and studying early sensory learning.

Machine Body & Extracurriculars

He is thankful to be part machine — titanium, Dacron, and cow. In his spare time, he can be found chopping out book reports and paradiddle-diddles on the snare with the Avant Garde Alumni Drumline, and documenting the history of drumming at drums.flipphillips.com.