Florian Willomitzer

Florian Willomitzer serves as Adjunct Associate Professor of Computer Science and Adjunct Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northwestern University, where he directs the Computational 3D Imaging and Measurement (3DIM) Lab. He earned his Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) in Physics from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2017, graduating with summa cum laude honors. His doctoral research, advised by Prof. Gerd Häusler at the Institute of Optics, Information and Photonics, investigated physical and information theoretical limits of optical 3D-sensing and implemented sensors operating close to these limits. The thesis, titled Physical and Information Theoretical Limits of Optical 3D-Sensing, was published by Springer and awarded the Springer Theses Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Research. He received his M.S. (Diplom-Phys.) in Physics from the same institution in 2010. During his doctoral studies, he freelanced for the research group’s spin-off company 3D Shape GmbH (now part of ISRA Vision) and taught physics part-time for high school classes at Rudolf Steiner-School in Nuremberg.

Willomitzer joined Northwestern University in Fall 2017 as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science under Prof. Oliver Cossairt, advancing his research profile in computational 3D imaging. In November 2019, he became Research Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and established the 3DIM Lab. Since September 2022, he holds adjunct associate professorships in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northwestern University, concurrently serving as Associate Professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona's Wyant College. His research specializations include computational imaging, optics and photonics, AR/VR/MR technologies, optical 3D metrology, computer vision, information theory, and image processing. Current projects develop novel methods for imaging hidden objects through scattering media or around corners using synthetic wavelength holography, high-resolution holographic displays, unconventional precise VR eye-tracking, high-precision metrology in low-cost mobile handheld devices, and time-of-flight and structured light imaging techniques achieving depth resolutions in the 100μm range. He received the NSF CRII grant in 2022, won the Optica 20th Anniversary Challenge, and is an OSA Senior Member. Willomitzer serves as General Chair of the OSA COSI conference, Optics Chair of the IEEE ICCP conference, and reviewer for IEEE, OSA, SPIE, CVPR, and Nature Portfolio publications.

Professional Email: florian.willomitzer@northwestern.edu