Brian O ' Brien Brian O ' Brien , Ph . D . was an optical physicist and " the founder of the Air Force Studies Board and its chairman for 12 years . Dr . O ' Brien received numerous awards , including the Medal for Merit , the nation ' s highest civilian award , for his work on optics in World War II and the Frederic Ives Medal in 1951 . Circa 1966 he " chaired an ad hoc committee under the USAF Science Advisory Board ( AFSAB ) looking into the UFO problem " . He also had steering power over National Academy of Sciences ( NAS ) projects , Project Blue Book , and helped pave the way for the Condon Committee . Early years . " Brian O ' Brien was born in Denver , Colorado in 1898 to Michael Phillip and Lina Prime O ' Brien . His education started in the Chicago Latin School from 1909 – 1915 , and continued at the Yale Sheffield scientific school where he earned a Ph . B . in 1918 and a Ph . D . in 1922 . He also did course work at MIT and Harvard . In 1922 he married Ethel Cornelia Dickerman and they had one son , Brian , Jr . After Ethel Cornelia died , he married a second time to Mary Nelson Firth in 1956 . He was a research engineer at Westinghouse Electric Co . from 1922 to 1923 . During this period he developed , along with Joseph Slepian , the auto - valve lightning arrester , which is still in use . In 1923 he moved to J . N . Adam Memorial hospital in Perrysburg , N . Y . , a tuberculosis sanitarium run by Buffalo ' s Public Health Department . Prior to the use of antibiotics , the primary treatment for tuberculosis was fresh air and sunshine . There was some evidence that sun tanning did help in the remission of the disease , but Perrysburg — 40 miles south of Buffalo — had very little sunshine in the winter . Therefore O ' Brien , as a physicist on staff , developed a carbon arcs with cored carbons that very closely matched the solar spectrum . With this development the patients could have sun therapy year - round . Due to a general interest in biological effects of solar radiation , he published some of the early work on the ozone layer and erythema caused by the sun . O ' Brien moved to the University of Rochester in 1930 to hold the chair of physiological optics . Shortly thereafter he became the director of the Institute of Optics . His continuing interest in the biological effects of solar radiation led to research in vitamin chemistry . The need for vitamin D , especially in the diet of children , had been recognized for preventing rickets . At that time there was no synthetic vitamin D , but the dehydrocholesterol in milk can be converted to vitamin D by radiation with ultraviolet light . The carbon arcs developed at Perrysburg were an ideal source of ultraviolet , but for proper irradiation , the milk had to be in a very thin film . . . . A film of high enough flow volume for commercial application was produced , and vitamin D - fortified milk became widespread . " War and peace : 1940 - 1953 . " By the end of 1940 , The Institute of Optics was already involved with optical problems for government agencies ; by the end of the academic year 1941 - 42 , it was becoming more and more deeply involved . " At the time the Institute was dealing with a spike in number of students and attempted to tailor the curriculum for military usefulness . O ' Brien ' s right hand man was R . E . Hopkins , a young instructor with a B . S . from MIT who had just received his MS from the Institute of Optics , helping with lens design and geometrical optics . The National Defense Research council became involved with the Institute December 1942 and continued the relationship until January 1946 . They were looking for someone to make infrared sensitive phosphors . Franz Urbach , an escaped Viennese expert , was working in the physics department and was quietly transferred to the Institute of Optics to help develop the " metascopes " for night vision . It was in relation to this work , in 1948 , that Albert Noyes and Brian O ' Brien were awarded The Medal of Merit by President Harry S . Truman , the highest civilian award given by government . In a report sent to President Valentine , Dr . O ' Brien estimated that the Institute had " spent " about one million dollars for the war effort " including overhead allowances to the University . " There was also a marked increase in undergraduate students during this time period . Recognizing his own personal research involvement O ' Brien decided to no longer accept graduate students . The Institute emerged from the war a little brighter and a little less worse for wear . However the school still had a very small faculty , " only one full - time professor and a few junior faculty . " Despite this limitation " five master ' s degrees and two Ph . D . s were awarded to students already enrolled . " In his ' 47 report , O ' Brien pointed out the number of government and industry requests made for the Institute to conduct research . He enjoyed the projects , but recognized the research would get in the way of " quality teaching . . . and that fair balance must be achieved . " He decided he was much more interested " guiding research and advanced degree students than in the tiresome details of undergraduate instruction . " M . Parker Givens , a Cornell Ph . D , joined the Institute during this growth spurt . This permitted an increase in students . " Fourteen , he said , should be graduating , in 1948 , and the total student enrollment was 53 , about equally divided through the classes . " One of the hallmark innovations developed following the war was a camera with a six inch f / 1 lens for night aerial work , " giving excellent definition over a curved surface , the film being curved by compressed air between the lens and film . " Another , first described at a meeting of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers in 1949 , was a high - speed camera , " used for observations at the Bikini bomb test , later much improved to make rapid sequences of pictures at speeds up to 20 million frames per second . "