Steve Sullivan receives Alumni Award for Distinguished Service

Steve Sullivan (MS ’91, PhD ’97) has received a 2023 Alumni Award for Distinguished Service, one of seven alumni chosen by The Grainger College of Engineering for their exceptional work. Sullivan won this award for his industry leadership and significant contributions to mixed reality and content creation technology.

“If you had told me as a student that I would be recognized like this, I never would’ve believed it, and I still don’t,” Sullivan said on receiving the award. 

As Partner and General Manager at Microsoft, he founded and led the Mixed Reality Capture Studios program producing holograms of human performances for VR, AR and 2D applications. This technology has captured thousands of performances for Mixed Reality, experienced by hundreds of millions of viewers over the past five years, with stages and partners across three continents. Sullivan also served as Director of R&D and Senior Technology Officer at ILM/Lucasfilm, contributing to more than 70 films and receiving three Academy Awards for Technology. He is an inventor of more than 25 patents and received a Lumiere Award for his work in volumetric video. 

Sullivan credits the culture of innovation at Grainger Engineering for setting him up to succeed. “That spirit of ‘hey, this has never been done … great, that’s what we’re here for, I’ll be the first to go do it’ really stuck with me, and it’s been kind of the foundation of my career.” His time at the interdisciplinary Beckman Institute also made an impression. He says: “that wider perspective of people from different disciplines all together in one place had a big influence on me.”

Recognizing the importance of giving back, Sullivan is enthusiastic about staying connected with his alma mater, making time to return to campus and talk with students and faculty. He hosts student interns from Illinois, often leading to job opportunities. Students are often curious about Sullivan’s career path (which he describes as “really fortunate … not intentional at all”), and he finds it interesting and rewarding to share career advice on “how to stay flexible and how to take risks doing something you really care about.”

For current students, he recommends taking advantage of the unique environment beyond the classroom. “The campus has so much talent and experience – people defining their fields – and you’re not going to find that outside Illinois. Go to seminars, seek out people who are great at what you’re interested in – they’ll probably give you more time than you might expect.”

Read about all seven 2023 Distinguished Alumni here.