Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink, FAIMBE, FPHMS, FSPIE, FARVO, UA FdaVinci, UA FACABI, Senior IEEE, founded the Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory in 2003 at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, USA.
Since October 2009, Dr. Fink has been an Associate Professor and the inaugural Edward & Maria Keonjian Endowed Chair in Microelectronics at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona in the Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Systems & Industrial Engineering, Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, and Ophthalmology & Vision Science. He held a Visiting Associate in Physics appointment at Caltech (2001-2016), as well as concurrent appointments as Visiting Research Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Neurological Surgery at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California (2005-2014). He was a Senior Researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2001-2009).
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink and the Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory featured on KOLD News 13 on disruptive navigation technology he and his laboratory have devised to help visually impaired people move through the world more safely and efficiently: Visual Impairment Subtle Touch Aid (VISTA).
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink has been recognized with the 2023 SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award "for pioneering, sustained contributions to the development of transformational opto-medical examination and device technologies, with particular focus on visual prostheses for the blind, ophthalmology, and tele-ophthalmology." The SPIE Aden and Marjorie Meinel Technology Achievement Award recognizes outstanding technical accomplishment in optics, electro-optics, photonic engineering, or imaging.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Fink has been featured in the Lifestyle Magazine LiMa360 in the article: "24 Stunden sind kein Tag (24 Hours are no Day)".
The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, or ARVO, the largest eye and vision research organization in the world, has selected ECE Associate Professor and inaugural Edward & Maria Keonjian Endowed Chair Wolfgang Fink as a member of its 2023 class of Fellows. He will be honored with Silver Fellow status at the organization’s annual conference in April 2023.
Prof. Wolfgang Fink has been elevated to ARVO Silver Fellow (Class of 2023) by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) after more than 27 years of service to the ophthalmic & vision science community.
Prof. Wolfgang Fink with a group of neuroscience and engineering students and a blind colleague prototyped a device to help visually impaired people move through the world more safely and efficiently: VISTA - Visual Impairment Subtle Touch Aid.
