Academy names 27 innovators for 15 Sci-Tech film breakthroughs

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Feb. 18 announced that 27 individuals representing 15 scientific and technical achievements will be honored for innovations that underpin modern filmmaking. The winners will be celebrated at a special Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony on April 28, 2026, at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

Awarded since 1931, the Scientific and Technical Awards are intended to spotlight the engineers, developers and companies whose work often goes unseen by audiences yet has a profound impact on how films are made, seen and heard. This year’s honors span the Academy’s Technical Achievement Award, Scientific and Engineering Award and Scientific and Technical Service Award categories.

“The Academy is honored to announce this year’s Scientific and Technical Awards recipients, whose extraordinary achievements continue to shape the art and craft of filmmaking,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor. “Their innovation, dedication and technical excellence have had a profound impact across our industry, enabling filmmakers to bring powerful stories to audiences around the world. We are thrilled to celebrate these individuals and achievements.”

Darin Grant and Rachel Rose, co-chairs of the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, framed the slate as a global engineering effort. “This year’s awards celebrate a global community of innovators who solve the industry’s most complex technical challenges,” they said. “Whether through enhancing the safety of practical effects with lead-free bullet hits or pushing the limits of stop-motion animation and sound restoration, these technologies are now fundamental to the craft. We are honored to recognize the brilliant minds behind these tools, which continue to elevate the moviegoing experience.”

Variety’s reporting identified one of the confirmed Scientific and Engineering Award recipients: Jamie Caliri and Dyami Caliri will receive an award for the design, engineering and ongoing development of Dragonframe software, a tool credited with transforming stop-motion animation workflows. That single citation points to the cultural and craft-level effects of recognizing software and process innovations: Dragonframe’s development has supported animators, studios and independent filmmakers who rely on frame-by-frame control to create tactile, handcrafted visual storytelling.

Other areas explicitly cited by the Academy’s announcement include developers responsible for safer practical effects using lead-free bullet hits, layered shading systems for visual effects, dialogue restoration tools and high dynamic range lighting technology. Variety reports that developers behind those advancements will receive Technical Achievement Awards. The announcement also notes innovators behind three major breakthroughs will accept Scientific and Engineering Awards; aside from the Caliris and Dragonframe, the other two breakthroughs were not named in the reporting available at publication.

The April 28 ceremony at the Academy Museum will present the awards in a special event that continues a long-standing industry ritual of recognizing technical contributors whose work can alter production pipelines, budgets and on-screen quality. The Academy’s public materials and press release will provide full citation language and the complete recipient roster; journalists and industry observers will be watching to see which studios, vendors and individual engineers receive recognition this year and how those honors map to ongoing shifts in VFX workflows, safety protocols on set and sound and image restoration markets.