Bill Buxton. He works for Microsoft now but used to work for Alias|Wavefront (also in Toronto as I understand it.)

I don't know how famous he is in programming circles, but in HCI and Interaction Design he is a well-known and respected for his fantastic research on two-handed interfaces.

I encountered him in a talk at Siggraph 2001. He is a charismatic guy and used a lot of creative examples of interface design. In particular he showed http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammassalik_wooden_maps

It is sad that Maya is now an Autodesk product: Autodesk is such a square, white bread, corporate outfit. The interface to their flagship AutoCAD is ludicrously clunky and antique, while something like Revit (another acquisition) is clever but really dumbed-down and limited in scope. Oh well.

Interesting, I'm gonna watch this just for him. As a Maya user, I think the people at AW were as high end as a team can possibly be. They were doing magic to my poor pentiumII.