David R. Williams, PhD Wins 2007 Bressler Prize in Vision Science

New York – February – David R. Williams, PhD, has won the 2007 Alfred W. Bressler Prize in Vision Science, awarded each year by The Jewish Guild for the Blind. The Guild’s Bressler Committee, made up of prominent ophthalmologists, optometrists and vision scientists from this country’s foremost vision care agencies and universities, chose Dr. Williams after careful review of the nominees and their accomplishments. Dr. Williams, Director of the Center for Visual Science at the University of Rochester will be awarded the $37,500 prize at a ceremony in New York City in autumn of 2006.

Dr. Williams’ past and present achievements have made him a dominant presence in the field of physiological optics, where his discoveries have set the stage for current efforts in sophisticated vision correction. His career has been spent entirely at the University of Rochester where he began by producing a widely admired series of studies of the visual performance and visual phenomena observed when optical interference fringe patterns are generated directly on the retina.

A landmark in visual science, Dr. Williams’ work on perception at Rochester goes beyond any previous work in this area. Even more important are the purely optical and physiological studies of vision that he has been carrying out, in which the spatial arrangement of the cone mosaic, the directional interaction between light and photoreceptor, and the spatial resolution of arrays of visual neurons in the brain, are being elucidated by direct observation. Most recently, his work with Junzhong Liang, Donald T. Miller and others, employing adaptive optics to improve the transmission of images both into and out of the eye, is a widely acclaimed tour de force.

Dr. Williams’ work with wavefront sensing and adaptive optics has gained much attention over the past several years, especially as the work has been directed toward developing important applications. These include wavefront sensing for the correction of higher aberrations in laser surgery; improved ophthalmoscopic cameras and refractometers that are under development for eye clinics; and improved contact lenses, and in future implants, shaped for the individual user.

Dr. Williams is currently Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester, and holds appointments within the University of Rochester in the following departments: Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine and Dentistry; Institute of Optics and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering and Applied Science; Center for Visual Science, College of Arts and Science.

Dr. Williams spent his Postdoctoral year at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ. He received his PhD and his MA from the Department of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and his BS from Denison University in Granville, OH.

The Alfred W. Bressler Prize
The Bressler Prize in Vision Science at The Guild was established in 2001, through a generous bequest of Alfred W. Bressler (1905-1999). Mr. Bressler was a noted New York attorney who enjoyed a distinguished legal career for more than 70 years, most of that time with the prestigious law firm of Moses & Singer. A graduate of the Columbia University School of Law in 1927, Mr. Bressler received recognition in 1998 when a professorship was named in his honor.

The Bressler Committee
The Bressler Committee has as its goal the selection of an accomplished mid-career vision care professional whose leadership, research and service have resulted in important advancements in the treatment of eye disease or rehabilitation of persons with vision loss, and whose life’s work portends future excellence.

The Jewish Guild for the Blind
The Jewish Guild for the Blind, one of the nation’s foremost not-for-profit vision health care agencies has been serving blind, visually impaired and multi-disabled children, adults and the elderly for almost a century. Thousands of individuals are helped annually through a wide range of programs and services specifically designed to support and enhance their physical, emotional and intellectual functioning. Health care services, rehabilitation therapies, education programs, adaptive skills and job training programs are designed to help persons who are visually impaired to achieve lives of independence and dignity. The Jewish Guild for the Blind is nonsectarian.

The Bressler Prize in Vision Science 2008

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