Tom Duff

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Thomas Douglas Selkirk Duff, born December 8, 1952, in Toronto, is a Canadian computer programmer. He grew up in Toronto and Leaside. He earned a B.Math from the University of Waterloo in 1974 and an M.Sc. from the University of Toronto in 1976.

Duff worked at the New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab and the Mark Williams Company in Chicago before joining Lucasfilm's Computer Research and Development Division. There, he and Tom Porter developed a new approach to image compositing. Their 1984 paper, "Compositing Digital Images," is considered foundational, and the technique is now known as Porter-Duff compositing.

He spent 12 years at Bell Labs Computing Science Research Center, where he worked on computer graphics, wireless networking, and Plan 9, and he created the "rc" shell for Version 10 Unix. Duff joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1996 and worked there until his retirement in 2021. He is also known for Duff's device, a famous programming trick. He was named after his ancestor, the fifth Earl of Selkirk.