birth_place awards nationality fields birth_date article_title alma_mater
brooklyn , new york national prize , 2004 russ prize , 2013 national academy of inventors engineering , 2015 hall of fame , 2002 r.w. wood american physics 19 march 1943 james j. wynne
 harvard university , b.a. 1964 , phd 1969
james j. wynne

james j. wynne -lrb- born march 19 1943 in brooklyn -rrb- is an american physicist at ibm watson research center in yorktown heights , ny .
wynne pioneered the use of excimer lasers for medical applications , most notably lasik .
he received the national medal of technology and innovation on feb 2 , 2013 from u.s. president obama , together with rangaswamy srinivasan and -lrb- posthumously -rrb- samuel blum for their contributions to laser eye surgery .
wynne studied at harvard university receiving the bachelor 's degree in 1964 , master 's degree in 1965 and his doctorate in applied physics in 1969 .
he then joined ibm research , first at ibm zurich research laboratory and then at the thomas j. watson research center .
his research has been in nonlinear optics of semiconductors and insulators , nonlinear spectroscopy of atomic and molecular vapors physics of clusters , using the laser to etch and in medicine -lrb- e.g. , fluorescence studies of tissue -rrb- .
in 1981 , with rangaswamy srinivasan and samuel e. blum at ibm , he pioneered the use of excimer lasers in surgery .
based on an early experiment in which an excimer laser was able to make clean cuts in dead cartilage from a thanksgiving turkey , without thermal damage , they recognized the potential for surgery .
srinivasan later developed on this basis , with bodil braren and stephen trokel , applications to eye surgery in the form of photorefractive keratectomy -lrb- prk -rrb- and lasik .
wynne himself worked on applications in dermatology with doctors at new york university medical school -lrb- 1985 -rrb- .
he was manager for nonlinear spectroscopy , laser physics and chemistry and biology and molecular physics at the ibm thomas j. watson center and the zurich research center .
wynne was a visiting scholar at the university of chicago , the university of rochester , the dartmouth college and johns hopkins university .
he is now responsible for education outreach at ibm thomas j. watson center .
he also conducts research on the development of '' intelligent '' scalpels with excimer lasers for the removal of necrotic skin from burn injuries .
in 2004 he received the r. w. wood prize , 2010 .
rank prize in optoelectronics and 2013 , the russ prize of the national academy of engineering .
he received the national medal of technology and innovation for 2011 .
1990 he was awarded the ibm outstanding innovation award .
he is a fellow of the american physical society -lrb- aps -rrb- , the ieee and optical society of america -lrb- osa -rrb- .
he was inducted into the national inventors hall of fame in 2002 .
he was co-founder of the forum for education of aps and aps was in committee for education and also in the osa .
he is a member of the national academy of sciences .
1982/83 he was co-editor of the journal of the optical society of america .
