Aaron M. Knoll

Personal



Thanks for visiting my page.

This is not a professional page. If you are looking for my publications, go here!

I grew up in Boston and went to a bilingual English-French elementary school. In 1985, my parents moved into a chateau in rural Normandy (purchased when the dollar was strong for the price of a US suburban home). My French is rusty but I still speak it pretty fluently, and will jump at any chance to go there. I especially love the Bordeaux area, and the Dune de Pyla near Arachon.

 

My undergraduate degree was in Mathematics and Computer Science at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. I developed interests in abstract algebra and topology, and primarily systems topics such as networks and high-performance computing. At that point in my life, I was mostly interested in computer graphics insofar as making pretty pictures for video games. Partly this is because linear algebra and rasterization scare me, compared to easier graphics concepts such as ray tracing.

   

After college, I wanted to go into the computer games industry, despite rumors from ex-employees of long hours, poor pay, high divorce/separation rate, and poor prospects for procreation and having offspring. Nonetheless, I went for a 1-year MSc at the Systems department of the University of Essex in the UK, with a special curriculum in computer game development. It was a broad and enjoyable educational experience.

 

After England, I landed a job in American Fork, Utah, and worked at a small game studio that developed then-"next-gen" titles. Unfortunately, the game industry nay-sayers turned out to be right. After some enjoyable early experience programming a cross-platform audio engine, I found that most game development consisted of massive software-engineering drudgery, minus the benefit of actual "engineering". The work environment was like a dungeon -- locked inside a scary building for long hours with no natural light, and fed scraps of flesh of indeterminate origin. I suspect my former coworkers who remained have all transformed into vampires by now...