Biography

Thomas Porter is the Senior Vice President, Production Strategy at Pixar Animation Studios. Porter was a part of the group who first started what the rest of the world knows as Pixar, and over the past twenty-five years has contributed his technical talent and supervision to many of the studios' films.

In February 1981, Porter was hired into the graphics group at Lucasfilm where he wrote a high-resolution paint program and worked on digital compositing. He also solved the "motion blur" problem for computer-generated imagery. Porter was later awarded with three Scientific & Technical Oscars® from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for these advancements.

During his time at Lucasfilm, Porter also oversaw software development for the Pixar Image Computer. In 1986, the graphics group at Lucasfilm, including Porter, left to start what is now known as Pixar Animation Studios.

Porter's first role at Pixar was as Director of Marketing and Director of Product Development. He then moved into the creative side as Shading and Visual Effects Lead on Pixar's first feature film, Toy Story. Porter was Supervising Technical Director for Monsters, Inc. and continued on to be Associate Producer on the Golden Globe®-winning film Cars, and Academy Award®-winner, WALL.E. After he completed his work on WALL.E, Porter was elevated to the role of Director of Production. Shortly thereafter, Porter was named Senior Vice President of Production and stayed in that role from 2009 to 2018.

Porter graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Math, and went on to earn a Master of Science in Computer Science from Stanford University. He then moved to Washington, DC to work for the National Institutes of Health. Porter's work at NIH allowed him access to the world's first commercial raster graphics device. Porter then worked for AMPEX Corporation, writing software for the world's first commercial digital paint program. Porter has published five SIGGRAPH papers in his career.
- IMDb mini biography by: Pixar Official site