Recognized for developing better ways to synthesize human motions to make animated characters that are better able to communicate, Gleicher has served as a Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he founded and led the Department's Computer Graphics group. The overall goal of his research has been to create tools that make it easier to create pictures, video, animation, and virtual environments, and to make these visual artifacts more interesting, entertaining, and informative. He has sought to build and apply an understanding of human perception, artistic traditions, numerical computation, and geometry.
His primary focus has been on tools for character animation, for the automated production of multimedia, and visualization and geometric analysis for biological applications, particularly structural bioinformatics. Gleicher is an ACM Distinguished Scientist. He earned his MS and Ph.D. in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (1988–1994), and holds a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from Duke University.
Prior to joining the university, Gleicher worked as a research scientist at The Autodesk Vision Technology Center (June, 1997 to July, 1998), where he conducted research on video tracking, motion capture, and editing techniques. He also worked at Apple Computer's Advanced Technology Group (August, 1994 through March, 1997) on a variety of research projects involving computer animation, computer vision, and user interfaces.
