Vivianne S (Smith) Pokorny received her undergraduate and doctorate in psychology in 1967 from Columbia University. Upon graduating, she joined the University of Chicago, where she is today Professor Emerita. She met her husband and lifelong collaborator Joel Pokorny in graduate school. They share an office today.

She was elected a Fellow of OSA in 1978, and she received, with her husband, the 1990 Edgar D. Tillyer Award “for contributions to basic and applied vision research, particularly in the areas of cone fundamentals, defective color vision, and flicker.”