2024 Edgar D. Tillyer Award Winner

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Optica Names Gordon E. Legge the 2024 Edgar D. Tillyer Award Recipient

Optica is pleased to announce that Gordon E. Legge, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, USA, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the Edgar D. Tiller Award. Legge is honored for revolutionizing the field of low vision research and applying this knowledge to aid and improve reading and mobility in people with low vision.

Legge received his master’s in Astronomy and PhD in Experimental Psychology from Harvard University, USA. He also spent a postdoctoral year at the Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge University, UK. He is currently director of the Minnesota Laboratory for Low-Vision Research, a founding member and scientific co-director of the Center for Applied and Translational Sensory Science (CATSS), and Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience.

His research concerns visual perception with primary emphasis on low vision. His projects focus on the roles of vision in reading and mobility, and the impact of impaired vision on the organization of visual centers in the brain. He addresses these issues with psychophysics, computational modeling, and brain-imaging (fMRI).

He and his colleagues developed the MNREAD Reading-Acuity Chart, which is the gold standard for assessment of reading vision. He served on the NIH National Advisory Eye Council, and was a member of a National Research Council committee involved with the redesign of US currency bills to enhance visual accessibility.

Legge has received multiple awards including a National Institutes of Health MERIT award, the Lighthouse Pisart Vision Award, the Charles F. Prentice Medal Award, the Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research, and the James McKeen Cattell Award. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

Established in 1953, the Tillyer Award is presented to an individual who has performed distinguished work in the field of vision, including but not limited to the optics, physiology, anatomy or psychology of the visual system. It honors Edgar D. Tillyer’s important contributions to the advancement of better vision and the optical sciences, and is endowed by the American Optical Company and the Chope Family Bypass Trust.

About Optica

Optica, Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, is the society dedicated to promoting the generation, application, archiving and dissemination of knowledge in the field. Founded in 1916, it is the leading organization for scientists, engineers, business professionals, students and others interested in the science of light. Optica’s renowned publications, meetings, online resources and in-person activities fuel discoveries, shape real-life applications and accelerate scientific, technical and educational achievement.