Dennis Muren, A.S.C. is a 9-time Academy Award-winning visual effects artist who began his career on George Lucas's original Star Wars (1977). He is one of the founders of Industrial Light & Magic, the powerhouse for modern Visual Effects blockbusters and where he worked from 1976 to 2018. Dennis is the first visual effects artist to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Working alongside directors such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron and actors such as Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dennis has been called ". . . a pioneer in bringing a new wave of visual effects films to the public, opening the doors for screenwriters and directors to tell stories never before possible with a new realism through the use of his skills in cinematic arts and advanced technologies." Dennis' passion for visual effects is rooted in childhood observations of the wonders and weirdness of the physical world and quickly became a full-time hobby when, at 11 years old, he was given an 8mm movie camera. Through middle and high school, he made dozens of home movies showing illusions of tiny people and giants, alien space crafts and dinosaurs.

He has won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects a record eight times, for The Empire Strikes Back (1980), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Return of the Jedi (1983), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Innerspace (1987), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and Jurassic Park (1993). For Dragonslayer (1981), he received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for a Motion Picture Figure Mover for animation photography. Dennis also has received seven additional nominations for his work on Dragonslayer (1981), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), Willow (1988), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and War of the Worlds (2005).

His additional credits include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the ABC miniseries Battlestar Galactica (1978), Empire of the Sun (1987), Ghostbusters II (1989), Casper (1995), Mission: Impossible (1996), Twister (1996), Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), Hulk (2003), Super 8 (2011), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). He was a visual effects supervisor for the Disney theme park attractions Captain EO (1986) and Star Tours (1987) and received an Emmy Award for Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984). Muren has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Visual Effects Society and the International Teleproduction Society, and was honored with the Nikola Tesla Satellite Award from the International Press Academy in 2007. Dennis is married to British documentary filmmaker and landscape architect Zara Muren, who produced and directed Dream of The Sea Ranch and The Landscape Architecture of Roberto Burle Marx.