Ken Perlin is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at NYU, where he directs the Future Reality Lab. His research interests include future reality, graphics and animation, user interfaces and education. He is chief scientist at Tactonic Technologies and Holojam Inc, and is an advisor for High Fidelity.

He received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, which are widely used in feature films and television, as well as the 2008 ACM/SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award.

He serves on the Advisory Board for the Centre for Digital Media at GNWC. He has been an external examiner for the Interactive Digital Media program at Trinity College, served on the program committee of the AAAS, was general chair of the UIST 2010 conference. and has been a featured artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from NYU, and a B.A. in theoretical mathematics from Harvard. Before working at NYU he was Head of Software Development at R/GREENBERG Associates in New York, NY. Prior to that he was the System Architect for computer generated animation at MAGI.