Gerald Westheimer AM FRS (born 13 May 1924) is an Australian scientist at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

researching the eye, its optics, and how we see details in space and in three dimensions.

Life and career

Westheimer was born on 13 May 1924 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

into an observant Jewish family—long settled in Germany and traced back at least Joseph Aaron Westheimer who had been born in 1768 in

Menzingen Menzingen is a municipality in the canton of Zug in Switzerland. History Menzingen is first mentioned around 1217-22 as ''Meincingin''. The traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X, which is said to have broken with the Vatican over "doctrinal ...

, Baden (Joseph was granted special residential status as a "protected Jew".) Westheimer is the younger of two sons. In 1938, state-sanctioned attacks against Jews in Nazi Germany prompted the family to emigrate to Australia, settling in Sydney. Shortly after arriving in Sydney, Westheimer completed high-school by self-study and enrolled in the professional Optometry program at the

Sydney Technical College The Sydney Technical College, now known as the TAFE New South Wales Sydney Institute, is a technical school established in 1878, that superseded the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts. The college is one of Australia's oldest technical education i ...

,University of California Berkeley Emeriti Association’s Legacy Project. (2021). Gerald Westheimer

ideo IDEO () is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 700 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, environ ...

YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/embed/wBqAcIkLkwQ from which he graduated with honours and the College Medal in 1943. While practising optometry he pursued further study, leading to a BSc in mathematics and physiology from

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's six ...

and submission of a thesis for the Fellowship of the Sydney Technical College. In 1951, Westheimer went to the US, first as a graduate student at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

(PhD, Physics-Physiological Optics) with Glenn A. Fry, influenced by

Paul Fitts Paul Morris Fitts Jr. (May 6, 1912 – May 2, 1965) was a psychologist at the Ohio State University (later at the University of Michigan). He developed a model of human movement, Fitts's law, based on rapid, aimed movement, which went on to becom ...

, and then in various professorial ranks in optometry schools of the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

, Ohio State and University of California, Berkeley, interrupted by post-doctoral studies at the

Marine Biological Laboratory The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biological and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution that was independent ...

in Woods Hole and at the Physiological Laboratory of the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. In 1960, he was appointed as an associate professor at the School of Optometry at Berkeley, becoming professor in 1963. In 1967, he joined Berkeley's Department of Physiology-Anatomy, later merged into the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, in which he established and headed the Division of Neurobiology until becoming professor in the Graduate School in 1994. Since 1994 he has also been a member of the adjunct faculty of the Laboratory of Neurobiology of

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classif ...

in New York. Westheimer never relinquished the Australian citizenship gained by naturalisation. Appointment to membership in the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

in 2009 recognised his continued identification with the country that provided refuge from the

holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. Appreciations of Gerald Westheimer's scientific and academic contributions have appeared at various stages of his career. In addition there is an autobiographical sketch.

Research

Even as a boy, Westheimer was interested in

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

, and the

eye Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several photo response functions that are independent of vision. Eyes detect light and conv ...

. He pursued these interests, mainly in human vision, in his long research career. As of May 2014, Westheimer has published over 200 scientific papers. He has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

, based on Web of Science, of 39. Publications include: * Westheimer, G. (1957). Kinematics of the eye. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 47, 967–974. * Westheimer, G. (1960), Modulation thresholds for sinusoidal light distribution on the retina. Journal of Physiology, 152, 67–74. * Westheimer, G., & Campbell, F. W. (1962). Light distribution in the image formed by the living human eye. Journal of the Optical Society of America, 52, 1040–1045. * Westheimer, G. (1965). Spatial interaction in the human retina during scotopic vision. Journal of Physiology, 181, 881–894. * Westheimer, G. (1966). The Maxwellian view. Vision Research, 6, 669–682. * Westheimer, G. (1967). Spatial interaction in human cone vision. Journal of Physiology, 190, 139–154. * Westheimer, G. (1975). Visual acuity and hyperacuity. Investigative Ophthalmology, 14, 570–572. * Gilbert, C., Ito, M., Kapadia, M., & Westheimer, G. (2000 ). Interactions between attention, context and learning in primary visual cortex. Vision Research, 40, 1217–1226. * Westheimer, G. (2005). The resolving power of the eye. Vision Research, 45, 945–947.

Music and Philanthropy

Gerald Westheimer is an accomplished recreational violinist and has donated a number of fine 19th-century violins to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, along with an endowment for their upkeep. According to Westheimer, the purpose of this collection is to “enable talented young Australian artists studying at the Conservatorium to perfect their performance skills on high quality instruments”.Let there be music, Bright minds inspired by generosity. Sydney Annual: the 2010 report on achievement and philanthropy, University of Sydney pp6-7. http://sydney.edu.au/supportsydney/images/Annual2011/Sydney%20Annual%202010.pdf.

Recognitions

Scientific
1978 Tillyer Medal,

Optical Society of America Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA) and before that as the Optical Society of America) is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conference ...

1979 Proctor Medal, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO)
1984 Fellow,

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

1986 von Sallman International Prize in Vision and Ophthalmology, Columbia University
1986 C.F. Prentice Medal,

American Academy of Optometry The American Academy of Optometry (AAO) is an organization of optometrists based in Orlando, Florida. Its goal is to maintain and enhance excellence in optometric practice, by both promoting research and the dissemination of knowledge. The AAO hold ...

1988 Bicentennial Medal, Australian Optometric Association
1992

Ferrier Lecture The Ferrier Lecture is a Royal Society lectureship given every three years "on a subject related to the advancement of natural knowledge on the structure and function of the nervous system". It was created in 1928 to honour the memory of Sir David ...

, Royal Society of London
1994 Fellow,

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

2010 Barry Collin Research Medal, Optometrists Association of Australia 202
Ken Nakayama Medal for Excellence in Vision Science
br> Academic
Honorary Doctorates in Science and Medicine
General
Order of Australia, member of General Division

References

External links

* Berkeley web site to honour Westheimer's 90th birthday https://web.archive.org/web/20140514231638/http://vision.berkeley.edu/?p=4459 * Westheimer's Berkeley web page https://mcb.berkeley.edu/faculty/NEU/westheimerg.html * April 2021 interview with Westheimer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBqAcIkLkwQ {{DEFAULTSORT:Westheimer, Gerald 1924 births Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Australia Members of the Order of Australia Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Australian neuroscientists Australian optometrists University of California, Berkeley faculty People from Berlin Living people Vision scientists Australian expatriates in the United States