India native Apurva Shah brings a wealth of expertise in 3D visual effects and animation to his role of senior technical director at Pixar Animation Studios. Apurva joined Pixar in 2001 to lead a team of effects animators to create a variety of shot sequences on the Academy Award -winning film Finding Nemo. Currently, he's a technical supervisor for lighting, effects and compositing on a Pixar film slated to release in 2007.

Prior to Pixar, Apurva held a variety of key positions in the animation and effects industries. At PDI/Dreamworks, he was one of four sequence supervisors responsible for the creation of lighting and effects for Shrek, including the film's main character. Apurva also was effects lead on the studio's first animated feature, Antz, and created visual effects shots on the live action films Batman Forever, The Arrival, and Broken Arrow.

In 2000, Apurva founded idea2media Studios, a company which focused on broadband content creation and backend engineering.

Apurva is as active in the world of teaching digital effects as he is at putting it into practice. He currently is a member of the faculty at Art Institute of San Francisco, where he instructs a 3D Visual Effects class in the animation department and a Motion Capture class in the school's visual game programming department. Apurva was previously a member of the faculty at Academy of Art College in San Francisco.

Apurva earned a master of science in computer science from Texas A&M University and holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Bombay University, Bombay, India. He also attended classes in film, drama, color and design, figure study, printmaking and ceramics at Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida.