Jannick Rolland is the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering at the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. She is also the co-founder and CTO of LighTopTech, a women-owner business founded in 2013 to create medical imaging technologies with biomimetic noninvasive imaging technology. At the University of Rochester, she is the Director of the NSF I/UCRC Center for Freeform Optics . She is also the Director of the R.E. Hopkins Center for Optical Design and Engineering that engages undergraduates in optical design, fabrication, and metrology.
Biography
Originally from France, Rolland earned her undergraduate degree from the Institut D'Optique Graduate School in 1984. She then moved to the United States where she completed her MS and Ph.D. degrees in optical science from the University of Arizona. Rolland completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she focused on learning vision and computer graphics while designing stereoscopic head-worn displays for medical visualization. She then served there as Research Assistant Professor and Head of the Vision Group Computer Science. Before joining the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester in 2009 she was a Professor of Optics, CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida. In 2016, Jannick collaborated with the OSA Foundation to honor her late-husband, Dr. Kevin P. Thompson by endowing the Kevin P. Thompson Optical Design Innovator Award. This award is given annually to inspire the next generation of innovators by recognizing significant contributions in lens design, optical engineering, or metrology by an individual researcher at an early stage of their career. Professor Rolland served on the editorial board of the Journal Presence , associate editor of Optical Engineering, and is currently associate editor of Optics Letters. She is a fellow of the Optical Society of America, SPIE, and NYSTAR, and a recipient of the 2014 OSA David Richardson Medal and the 2017 Edmund A. Hajim Outstanding Faculty Award.
Awards and honors
2020, Joseph Fraunhofer Award/ Robert M. Burley Prize, Optical Society of America
2017, Outstanding Faculty Award, Edmund A. Hajim Outstanding Faculty Award, University of Rochester.
2014, David Richardson Medal, The Optical Society for “For visionary contributions and leadership in optical design and engineering, enabling noninvasive, optical biopsy”.
2008, Fellow of SPIE.
2004, Fellow of the Optical Society of America for “For contributions to image quality assessment techniques for medical imaging and for optics in virtual environments.”
Selected publications
Aaron Bauer, Eric M. Schiesser & Jannick P. Rolland. “Starting geometry creation and design method for freeform optics” Nature Communicationsvolume 9, Article number: 1756.
Kevin P. Thompson, Pablo Benítez, and Jannick P. Rolland, "Freeform Optical Surfaces: Report from OSA’s First Incubator Meeting," Optics & Photonics News 23, 32-37.
Patents
Freeform nanostructured surface for virtual and augmented reality near eye display
