Inventing the Future: Disney Imagineer Lanny Smoot to Headline SIGGRAPH 2026

Disney Research Fellow and National Inventors Hall of Fame Inductee to Address the World's Leading Computer Graphics Conference

LOS ANGELES, May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- SIGGRAPH 2026, the world's premier conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, will take place 19–23 July in Los Angeles, bringing together a global community of researchers, artists, developers, and engineers to explore the latest advances shaping the future of computer graphics and interactive techniques. This year's conference features a landmark keynote from Lanny Smoot, research fellow at Disney Research and one of The Walt Disney Company's most prolific inventors. Smoot's keynote, "Inventions, Innovations, and Imagination: Lanny Smoot's Prolific Path," will take audiences on a firsthand journey through a career built at the intersection of engineering, art, and storytelling, offering insight into how bold technical ideas become real-world experiences that audiences around the globe encounter every day.

As the holder of 107 patents and a 2024 inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Smoot is only the second person from The Walt Disney Company to receive that distinction, following Walt Disney himself. For more than 45 years, his work has advanced fiber optics, video-on-demand, immersive media, themed entertainment, and extended reality. His inventions are woven into Disney theme parks, resorts, and cruise ships worldwide and have made appearances in SIGGRAPH's Emerging Technologies program, where they have become enduring reference points in the field.

"Having Lanny Smoot as our keynote speaker sets the tone for everything we are building at SIGGRAPH 2026," said SIGGRAPH 2026 Conference Chair Chris Redmann. "His journey from groundbreaking R&D at Bell Labs to bringing creative ideas to life at Walt Disney Imagineering and Disney Research is exactly the kind of leadership our community looks to for inspiration. Lanny's belief that invention is a team sport aligns directly with our mission to advance cross-disciplinary collaboration across research, art, and engineering. For every researcher, artist, and engineer in that room, his story is proof of what becomes possible when bold ideas meet the right team."

Smoot launched his career at Bell Labs, where foundational patents on sensitive fiber-optic receivers with automatic gain control helped expand fiber-optic transmission infrastructure across the country. He later served as patent leader at Bell Communications Research before joining Walt Disney Imagineering, where he has spent more than 25 years creating technologies that blur the line between engineering and magic. Among his most recognized innovations are the HoloTile™ Floor, an omnidirectional treadmill that enables users wearing head-mounted displays to walk freely through virtual environments; the extendable lightsaber and its companion interactive training experience at Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser at Walt Disney World; and classic special effects still delighting guests in the Haunted Mansion.

A three-time Thea Award recipient from the Themed Entertainment Association and a 2020 TEA Master, Smoot has also carried a parallel commitment to mentorship throughout his career, speaking at universities and schools to encourage young people, particularly people of color, to pursue careers in science and themed entertainment.

"Each time that I have made a contribution to SIGGRAPH, I have taken home more than I have given," Smoot said. "I believe that successful technical practitioners love to create and want to learn from others who have new ideas that might fill the gaps in the dreams that they have. There is one other strong motivation, and it is the desire to show off a latest brainchild, but with a gentle human competitive spirit that ends with camaraderie."

In his keynote, Smoot will illustrate how invention functions best as a team sport, with breakthroughs emerging when engineers, artists, and storytellers bring complementary strengths to shared problems. He credits cross-disciplinary collaboration as the defining factor in his most significant work, noting that knowing enough about a teammate's field to communicate a problem in their language is the foundation for turning ambitious ideas into finished experiences.

"For the younger folks in the audience, I would like them to know that they can have great joy in being an inventor," Smoot stated. "We don't have to be experts in all technical (or artistic) areas, as it is teams of people with different strengths who are most likely to do amazing work. For the experienced technical practitioner: Enjoy the friendly competition to create new technologies … we technologists are a very important part of society, and we are often in the lead in how the world can be made a better place."

Smoot's keynote reflects the SIGGRAPH 2026 program's mission to advance the state of the art in computer graphics and interactive techniques, connect research with production, and inspire future breakthroughs across a global community of researchers, artists, developers, and engineers.

To learn more about Smoot's path from early patents to iconic Disney experiences, read the full interview, "Invention as a Team Sport: Lanny Smoot on Innovation, Collaboration, and SIGGRAPH", on the ACM SIGGRAPH Blog. Registration for SIGGRAPH 2026 is open at s2026.siggraph.org/register.

About ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, and SIGGRAPH 2026
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field's challenges. ACM SIGGRAPH is a special interest group within ACM that serves as an interdisciplinary community for members in research, technology, and applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The SIGGRAPH conference is the world's leading annual interdisciplinary educational experience showcasing the latest in computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH 2026, the 53rd annual conference hosted by ACM SIGGRAPH, will take place live 19–23 July at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

SOURCE SIGGRAPH 2026