James J. Wynne (born March 19, 1943, in Brooklyn)[2] is an American physicist at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY.
He received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation on February 2, 2013, from U.S. President Obama, together with Rangaswamy Srinivasan and (posthumously) Samuel Blum for their contributions to laser eye 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,[3] 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 (PRK) and LASIK.
He also conducts research on the development of ″smart scalpels″ with excimer lasers for the removal of necrotic skin from burn injuries.