Rate My Professor David Williams

David R. Williams is the William G. Allyn Professor of Medical Optics in the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, with joint appointments as Professor in the Departments of Ophthalmology, Biomedical Engineering, and Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He earned a B.S. in Psychology from Denison University in 1975, an M.A. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego in 1976, a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego in 1979, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Bell Laboratories in 1980. Williams joined the University of Rochester in 1981 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, advancing to Associate Professor in 1984 and Professor in 1990. He served as Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences from 1995 to 2009, Professor in the Institute of Optics from 2009 to present, Director of the Center for Visual Science from 1991 to 2021, and Dean for Research in Arts, Sciences and Engineering from 2011 to 2019.

Williams specializes in the mechanisms of human vision and physiological optics, with research interests including adaptive optics retinal imaging, cone photoreceptor imaging in the living eye, retinal ganglion cell imaging, optogenetic therapy for vision restoration, and the spectral dependence of light exposure on retinal pigment epithelium disruption. He developed the first adaptive optics system for the eye, enabling unprecedented microscopic resolution images of the living retina and demonstrating vision sharper than provided by conventional spectacles. Key publications include "Evolution of adaptive optics retinal imaging" (Williams et al., 2023, Biomedical Optics Express), "Imaging single cells in the living retina" (Williams, 2011, Vision Research), "Imaging individual neurons in the retinal ganglion cell layer of the living eye" (Rossi et al., 2017, PNAS), and "Packing arrangement of the three cone classes in primate fovea" (Roorda and Williams, 2001, Vision Research). Author of over 140 papers and numerous patents, his contributions have advanced vision science significantly. Major awards encompass election to the National Academy of Sciences (2014), Champalimaud Vision Award (2012), Beckman-Argyros Award in Vision Research (2015), Sigma Xi William Procter Prize (2015), ARVO Friedenwald Award (2006), and Optica Edgar G. Tillyer Award (1998). Williams is a Fellow of Optica, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and ARVO Gold Fellow.