Dr. Paul Fishwick
- Chair Emeritus of Arts, Humanities, and Technology
- Former Professor of Computer Science
- Arts, Humanities, and Technology Distinguished University Chair (Former)
An anonymous gift established the Distinguished University Chair in 2010 to enable the School of Arts and Humanities (as it was known at the time) to recruit and retain outstanding faculty engaged in research in arts and technology. Fishwick was appointed to the chair in January 2013.
“UT Dallas is unique in its ambition to bridge computing and engineering with the arts and humanities. There are a lot of possibilities here.”
Dr. Paul Fishwick, who retired from the faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas on Jan. 1, 2023, held dual appointments in the School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology, and in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. He also led the Creative Automata Lab, designed to bring human elements to the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
Fishwick pioneered the area of aesthetic computing, bringing together elements of art, modeling, simulation and engineering, with the goal of exploring new representational approaches.
He built models that showed what abstract concepts and complex equations physically represent. These representations of mathematical formulas and computer software were intended to improve understanding of how abstract artifacts work.
Students in his lab were challenged to create models to illustrate difficult concepts in science and mathematics.
“Models are common to all disciplines within the University,” Fishwick said. “They are designed and constructed to help us understand a breadth of subjects, from extreme weather to business trends. Creating a model is really an artistic process.”
Early in his career, Fishwick worked as a programmer analyst for Newport News Shipbuilding, the sole designer, builder and refueler of U.S. Navy aircraft carriers. He also worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia as a systems analyst. Later, he served on the faculty at the University of Florida beginning in 1986 and was director of the digital arts and sciences programs there. He joined the UT Dallas faculty in 2013.
Fishwick earned a PhD in computer and information science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986, a Master of Science in applied science from the College of William & Mary in 1983, and a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University in 1977.