[jplusequalt]

There's a whole host of researchers who helped paved the way for modern graphics that no-one outside the graphics community knows about. Ever heard of Eric Veach? His work on path tracing is extremely important, and I've never heard a single person who wasn't already in the weeds of writing their own path tracer mention him or his ground-breaking thesis.

https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/veach_thesis/thesis.pdf