Paul Debevec is a Senior Staff Engineer at Google VR and an Adjunct Research Professor at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering. 

Debevec's computer graphics research has been recognized with ACM SIGGRAPH's first Significant New Researcher Award in 2001 for "Creative and Innovative Work in the Field of Image-Based Modeling and Rendering", a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award® in 2010 for "the design and engineering of the Light Stage capture devices and the image-based facial rendering system developed for character relighting in motion pictures", and the SMPTE Progress Medal in 2017 in recognition of his "achievements and ongoing work in pioneering techniques for illuminating computer-generated objects based on measurement of real-world illumination and their effective commercial application in Hollywood films". 

In 2014, he was profiled in The New Yorker magazine's "Pixel Perfect: The Scientist Behind the Digital Cloning of Actors" and worked with the Smithsonian Institution to scan a 3D model of President Barack Obama at The White House.  

He is a member of the Visual Effects Society and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has recently served as ACM SIGGRAPH Vice President and a co-chair of the Academy Sci-Tech Council.