Stuart Sumida

Stuart Sumida is a biologist and paleontologist who earned his bachelors and doctoral degrees from UCLA, and later did postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago.  He is now a professor of Biology at the California State University campus in San Bernardino.  He studies animal structure, function, and evolution; he has written three books and nearly 100 peer-reviewed publications. He has worked as an animal and human anatomical consultant to animation and VFX studios for over 35 years, first working with Walt Disney Feature Animation on Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, and others.  Since then he has worked with DreamWorks, SONY ImageWorks, DreamQuest, PIXAR, Blue Sky, MPC, FrameStore, Double Negative, Guerrilla Games, RockSteady Games, Walt Disney Imagineering.  He has worked on over 100 feature film projects, including the first and last Harry Potter films, the How to Train Your Dragon films, Life f Pi, Ratatouille, the first Guardians of the Galaxy, Greatest Showman, Jumanji, Zootopia, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, on Kong Skull Island, and others. More recently he is credited for his work on the Mr. Mittens character in PIXAR’s academy-award winning film Soul, Zootropolis, and the upcoming Zootropolis 2, and DreamWorks’ Wild Robot. He has been an anatomical consultant to Blizzard Games, Creative Assembly, RIOT, and the first version of Horizon Zero Dawn for Guerrilla Games.