Computer Sciences Laboratory Xerox Corporation Palo Alto Research Center 3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto, California 94304 415 494-4000 XEROX June 25, 1986 Mary Whitton Trancept Systems Inc. 521F Uwharrie Court Raleigh, NC 27606-1456 Dear Mary: John Beatty forwarded your ideas (dated April 14, 1986) concerning the Computer Graphics newsletter last weekend, as I shall be the new Editor-in-Chief for SIGGRAPH commencing July 1. We must share telepathic powers. As soon as I had been given your notes, but without reading them, I began thinking about new things to do with the Computer Graphics newsletter. One of my strongest ideas was to collect and publish recent PhD dissertation abstracts in the field of computer graphics. Your notes contained a very similar suggestion. I think we should do something about it. Lets start with PhD dissertation abstracts for several reasons. First, we both thought of it, therefore it must be a good idea. Second, I have a selfish reason: while trying to hire recent PhD graduates, how does my group discover the best computer graphic PhD grads around. Third, a review and bibliography service for the Computer Graphics newsletter already exists, but with the changeover in Editor-in-Chief, those services are under reconsideration. Please enquire about ways to discover what PhD dissertation abstracts relate to our field. Without committing you to edit such a column, we can begin to put the procedures in place. Sincerely, Richard J. Beach Editor-in-Chief Computer Graphics