David R. Williams
William G. Allyn Professor of Medical Optics
Professor of Optics
Director, Center for Visual Science

Meliora 270
Phone: (585) 275-8672
Fax: (585) 271-3043
E-mail: david@cvs.rochester.edu

Short Biography
David R. Williams received his BS from Denison University in 1975, his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 1979 under the mentorship of Donald I.A. MacLeod and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill in 1980 with John Krauskopf. He is currently William G. Allyn Professor of Medical Optics at the University of Rochester. Since 1991, Williams has served as Director of Rochester’s Center for Visual Science, an interdisciplinary research program of 29 faculty interested in the mechanisms of human vision. He is also an Associate Director of the Center for Adaptive Optics at UC, Santa Cruz. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, received the OSA Edgar G. Tillyer Award in 1998, and the Archie Mahan Prize in 2004. He is also the 2006 recipient of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology’s Friedenwald Award.

Research
Dr. Williams' research marshals optical technology to address questions about the fundamental limits of spatial and color vision. His research team demonstrated the first adaptive optics system for the eye, showing that vision can be improved beyond that provided by conventional spectacles. His team also showed that adaptive optics can provide microscopic images of the retina with unprecedented resolution.

Williams Group home page
http://www.cvs.rochester.edu/williamslab/