Wolfgang Fink Presentation

Dr. Wolfgang Fink
Senior Researcher at JPL
Research Assistant Professor, Keck School of Medicine at USC

Friday, August 20, 2004
12:30pm - 2:00pm
Baskin #318

ABSTRACT:
Vision is the primary sense used by astronauts in space and people on Earth. Visual information is essential during critical phases of spaceflight such as rendezvous and docking, robotic operations and landing, and daily life on Earth. The spaceflight environment has many significant effects on the visual and ocular system that can adversely affect astronaut performance, and may lead to long-term health consequences, such as: Intracranial/intraocular hypertension, UV, thermal and other kinds of radiation damage to the macula, hypoxia, poisoning, etc. On Earth there are many conditions that, if undetected or detected too late, may lead to irreversible visual field loss and eventually to blindness, e.g., glaucoma and macular degeneration. The human eye and vision system can be likened to a camera consisting of an optical lens system (cornea and eye lens), film (retina), and an image-processing unit (retina and visual cortex). The malfunctioning of only one of these components will impair vision.

The talk will cover the following topics: 1) The Autonomous Visual Field Test & Diagnosis System (http://www.wfbabcom5.com/wf335.htm): a software package utilizing a touch-sensitive computer screen for fast, easy, accurate, non-invasive, and comprehensive visual field testing and classification in space and on Earth; 2) The Wireless Intraocular Pressure Sensor (WIPS) project: to develop an implantable MEMS-based pressure sensor for assisting glaucoma therapy; 3) The project Eyemovie (http://www.eyemovie.org): a computer-manipulated movie, showing how various eye defects and corrections thereof affect visual perception; 4) The Artificial Vision Simulator (AVS): a simulator of the visual perception provided to a patient by a retinal implant electrode array with real-time image processing; and 5) The Digital Object Recognition Audio-assistant (DORA): a camera-input/audio-output system that recognizes color, brightness, and a number of everyday objects to be verbally announced to the visually impaired or blind patient on demand.

BIO:
As a Senior Researcher at JPL, Research Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology as well as Neurological Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC), and Visiting Associate in Physics at Caltech, Dr. Wolfgang Fink conducts research in the areas of biomedicine, astrobiology, computational field geology, and spacecraft/rover autonomy. He is one of the founding Co-Investigators of the NSF-funded Biomimetic MicroElectronics Systems (AIER) Engineering Research Center, awarded to the University of Southern California (USC) in 2003. Dr. Fink is a recent recipient of the NASA Spaceflight Awareness Award for his work in biomedical research in support of human spaceflight. Further, he holds a Commercial Pilot’s License (US CPL) for rotorcraft/helicopters.

Dr. Wolfgang Fink joined JPL in 2001 as a Senior Researcher after completing a 3-year Postdoctoral Scholarship in Physics with Dr. Steven Koonin (Provost of Caltech) at Caltech. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics in 1997 from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Germany, in the groups of Dr. Erich Schmid and Dr. Eberhart Zrenner. His Ph.D. research concerned the interdisciplinary field of Applied Theoretical Physics and Ophthalmology/Neuro-ophthalmology. In 1993 Wolfgang earned his Diploma in Physics (M.S.) from the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Germany, working on models of Neural Networks in the group of Dr. Annette Zippelius and Dr. Andreas Engel.