Alumnus Profile: Steven Schkolne (MS '99, PhD '04)

Steven Schkolne (MS '99, PhD '04, Computer Science) has been fascinated by computers long before they became mainstream. His early experiences with programming and video games have fueled a career that successfully integrates art, design, and mathematics. As the founder and CEO of MightyMeld, a visualization and creation platform for web applications, Schkolne's pioneering work has solidified his reputation as a leading figure at the intersection of technology and creativity. Additionally, Schkolne's PhD research led to the first fully functional drawing programs for virtual reality, establishing him as one of the foremost experts in 3D interface design worldwide.

ENGenuity spoke with Schkolne to learn more about his inspirations, his career, and the enduring impact of his Caltech education.

ENGenuity: How would you describe your professional contributions and what you are doing now?

Steven Schkolne: Since Caltech, I've been working a lot with software and creative tools to build digital products. I am currently the founder of a startup called MightyMeld, which is a web development tool that brings together a lot of my interests and experience. MightyMeld is a visual development tool that allows web product engineers to work more visually, creatively, and quickly when building the front end of web applications.

Throughout my career, I have worked on experimental interfaces for museums, exhibitions, architects, artists, and a lot of other cutting-edge applications. Right now with MightyMeld, I am working on something a little more traditional but with a big market. The web is continuing to grow, and applications are continuing to grow in sophistication. I am bringing together a lot of my learnings from working at these extremes into something a little more mainstream.

ENGenuity: Is there an aspect of your career that you are most proud of?

Schkolne: I am most proud of my ability to bridge gaps between math and engineering on the one side and art and design on the other. The world really tries to put people into one category or the other, and if you are interested in both sides, as I am, it is very difficult to have a career where you can have meaningful challenges that bring both spheres together.

At Caltech, I spent a lot of time at ArtCenter. I was the poster child for the ArtCenter/Caltech hybrid. At ArtCenter, I was always the techy guy. At Caltech, I was always the artsy guy. So, I floated back and forth.

What I am most proud of, like most Techers, is that I am motivated by my curiosity and my interests, and I have managed to build a career that bridges those interests together in a way that is meaningful.

ENGenuity: What initially sparked your interest in science?

Schkolne: I was never really interested in science. I was interested in math and computers, and I was interested in computers back before it was cool. There was a time around when I started at Caltech when the whole world started to use the internet, but I loved computers from the start, and I was really good at math. Science just followed along with that. Caltech gave me a lot of exposure to science; I feel that Caltech made me a science person in a way that I wasn't before. But math was really my interest. Math was also the strong thing at Caltech too. A big part of my Caltech experience was going deep into math. A lot of people say, "why learn math if you are not going to use it?" But math is like the gymnasium for your mind.

ENGenuity: How has your Caltech education influenced you?

Schkolne: The primary thing I learned at Caltech was how to create new knowledge—how to learn things that people have not learned before and how to go into projects with the confidence that there's something at the end. I didn't go into academia, I didn't do much research after I left Caltech, but that experience of doing research allowed me to take a lot of those learnings into industry.

One of the things I value most about Caltech is the way in which the Institute is interdisciplinary. Every university in the country says they are interdisciplinary—it's a schtick that everyone has—but Caltech is interdisciplinary on an entirely different level. There are schools where someone might be a biology person or a chemistry person, and they are defined by the way in which they are categorized in the world. What I experienced at Caltech is people who practiced in a field, published in a certain area, and solved problems in a certain discipline, but what they were working on was more fundamental. Everyone was united by the language of math. I viewed Caltech as basically a math school where everyone understands a lot of math and then there were applications on top of that. I found that so exciting and I think it's one of the things that makes Caltech special. You can go to anyone on campus and say, "this is the problem I am working on." You can go to the Red Door and sit down with a stranger and be like, "I am trying to solve this problem," and that person will have a meaningful contribution to what you are doing. It's because everyone is united by the same fundamentals and the same language of math.

ENGenuity: What advice would you give to current Caltech students or recent alumni?

Schkolne: A lot of Caltech students undersell themselves; they don't realize how special they are or how special their experiences have been. It's such an esteemed institution that you'd think people would have these overly high opinions of themselves, but it seems to be the opposite. I think a lot of students are looking for a place in the world, so I'd say have a lot of confidence in your abilities and push for what you are interested in doing in the world.

ENGenuity: What class or professor made a significant impact on you at Caltech?

Schkolne: The biggest influence would be my advisor, Peter Schroeder [Shaler Arthur Hanisch Professor of Computer Science and Applied and Computational Mathematics]. It's hard to understate his impact on me. I learned a lot from him in terms of research on computer graphics at the time, but the gift he really gave me was the gift of vision—being able to have a vision for the world and own that with confidence. Peter was instrumental in helping me settle down, focus, and follow a path. He supported my vision with my research. It was a wonderful experience. I don't know many people who have had that kind of experience. He's the person I am most grateful for.

I have also had good experiences with some people you may not expect like Jim Barry, [Drawing, Painting, Silkscreen Art Director], who is still active at Caltech, and David Kremers, who has been involved in the Institute on the art side. They were both very impactful for me. They helped me have that kind of breadth that I needed to become the person I needed to be professionally.

ENGenuity: What is your favorite story or piece of media?

Schkolne: I don't really hold on to stories. I am not a narratively driven person. I love music, but I'm the kind of person where it is hard for me to pick my favorite band. I like film, so maybe Lost Highway by David Lynch if I wanted to pick just one.

We live in a world where it is easy to be more of a generalist in your tastes. In terms of music, I listen to a lot of hip-hop, everything from Nas to Payroll Giovanni. I've been listening to the Joy Formidable and other shoegaze bands like Deafheaven. I'll listen to Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin. I've been listening to a lot of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp lately. I like folk music, and I'm a big fan of Will Oldham.

I like low-brow reality TV a lot. I really like this show called Gold Rush which is about gold mining. I watch a lot of football when I am not working. Video games have been inspirational for me as well. I've been playing a game called Heroes of the Storm.

In terms of filmmaking, I like David Lynch and Nick Cassavetes, but I also really like a good heist movie like Ocean's Eleven or something like that. I like high culture and low culture and I'm not a big fan of middle culture. I tend to either like esoteric, experimental films or bad reality TV. Don't ask me to name a celebrity!

ENGenuity: What is your favorite destination?

Schkolne: There's a beach in Mozambique called Inhambane, which is a little bit north of Maputo. I had a wonderful week there amid a big stretch of traveling. It has white sands and a very laid-back energy, the kind you'll find throughout Mozambique. I also like Rio de Janeiro and Copenhagen. In the States, the cities I like most are L.A., New York, and Miami, because those are the places where there is an international feel. I like the California desert a lot; it is my favorite ecosystem. I like the sound quality of the desert and the dynamism of the weather.

ENGenuity: What gives you the most satisfaction in your work?

Schkolne: Seeing our users succeed with our product and delivering a good experience to people. We work hard to deliver a quality experience with our product—an experience of working creatively—and that is what motivates me the most. In a way, that's where the artistic things and the engineering things come together through software.

ENGenuity: What keeps you up at night?

Schkolne: Making my startup succeed. Doing an early-stage venture is very dynamic. There are always some huge problems to solve. Even when you succeed, you might have an hour to celebrate before you are on the next rung of the ladder and the next huge challenges are racing at you. That's always what's keeping me up at night.

ENGenuity: What gets you up in the morning?

Schkolne: To keep going at those challenges.