Danielle Feinberg

Danielle Feinberg
Born	Boulder, Colorado, U.S.
Alma mater	Harvard University
Occupations	visual effects supervisor cinematographer computer scientist
Years active	1997-present
Employer	Pixar Animation Studios (1997-present)
Notable work	WALL-E (2008) Brave (2012) Coco (2017) Turning Red (2022)

Danielle Feinberg is an American Visual effects supervisor, cinematographer and Director of Photography for Lighting at Pixar Animation Studios. She directed lighting for the Academy Award-winning films WALL-E, Brave and Coco and was the Visual effects supervisor for Turning Red.

Life and career

Danielle Feinberg was born in Boulder, Colorado and graduated from Boulder High School. Growing up, she attended summer camps and after-school programs for students interested in computer programming and engineering. She attended Harvard University, where she was introduced to computer animation in a computer graphics course during her junior year. She graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts in computer science.

After graduating from Harvard, she started working at Pixar in February 1997 as a technician managing the large libraries of data and images for rendering A Bug's Life. She has since been credited for leading work in visual effects, technical direction, and graphics.

Outside of Pixar, she mentors girls to help them find inspiration in STEM through groups like Girls Who Code. She gives talks in the United States and abroad, using them when she can as a platform to encourage girls to pursue STEM fields. In fact, Made with Code, which is an initiative launched by Google, was kick started with her inspiring keynote.

In 2015, she appeared in the documentary Code: Debugging the Gender Gap. In November 2015, she delivered a talk on science and art at TED Talks Live in New York at the historic Town Hall Theater. It was also streamed by PBS. In 2022, she was featured along with Domee Shi, Lindsey Collins and Rona Liu as the leading women of Turning Red in the documentary Embrace the Panda: Making Turning Red.

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	A Bug's Life	lead render technical director
1999	Toy Story 2	master lighting artist
2001	Monsters, Inc.	master lighting artist
2003	Finding Nemo	computer graphics supervisor	lead development on ocean graphics unit
2004	The Incredibles	lead lighting artist
2007	Ratatouille	master lighting artist
2008	WALL-E	director of photography for lighting
2012	Brave	director of photography lighting
2015	Inside Out	master lighting artist
	The Good Dinosaur	master lighting artist
2017	Coco	director of photography for lighting
2022	Turning Red	visual effects supervisor

Short films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2003	Exploring the Reef	technical supervisor	short documentary film distributed with Finding Nemo
2006	Lifted	lighting artist	Initial theatrical release with Ratatouille
2008	BURN-E	lighting consultant
2009	Partly Cloudy	lighting	Initial theatrical release with UP
2020	SparkShorts - Loop	supervising technical director
2023	Pete	directory of photography for lighting	Independent short film, directed by Bret Parker

Awards

Year	Movie	Award	Notes
2011		Marie Claire Magazine Women on Top	Recognized as the top "Film Techie"
2013		15th Assembly District Women of the Year	Issued by Assemblymember Nancy Skinner for Feinberg's work with girls in STEM
2015		NCCWSL Woman of Distinction	Awarded by the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders
2018	Coco	Won Annie award	Outstanding achievement for product design in an animated feature production.
2018		Girls in Tech Creator of the Year	Awarded by Girls in Tech
2022		San Francisco Business Times OUTstanding Voices	Awarded by San Francisco Business Times for Leaders paving the way for LGBTQ equality in the workplace
2022		Breaker of the Glass Ceiling	Awarded by the Women of Siggraph Conversations

See also

• List of Pixar films
• List of Pixar shorts
• Women in computing