Aran Safir (March 29, 1926 – January 21, 2007) was an American ophthalmologist and inventor. He is known for inventing a groundbreaking

iris recognition Iris recognition is an automated method of biometric identification that uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques on video images of one or both of the irises of an individual's eyes, whose complex patterns are unique, stable, and can ...

scanner. This technology has been widely adopted in the security sector, ranging from the

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Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

. The invention was patented on February 3, 1987, and expired in the United States in 2005. Safir and his co-inventor, Leonard Flom, were inducted into the

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also oper ...

in 2013. Born in New York City, Safir received his undergraduate and medical degrees from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. In the 1960s, he received his first patent for an early electronic

retinoscope Retinoscopy (Ret) is a technique to obtain an objective measurement of the refractive error of a patient's eyes. The examiner uses a retinoscope to shine light into the patient's eye and observes the reflection (reflex) off the patient's retina. W ...

. Safir served on the faculty at the

Mount Sinai School of Medicine The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City. It is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages eig ...

and also served as chief of ophthalmology at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...

before retiring in 1989.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Safir, Aran 1926 births 2007 deaths New York University alumni American ophthalmologists 20th-century American inventors Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai faculty University of Connecticut faculty Biometrics