Tom Norman Cornsweet[1] (April 29, 1929 – November 11, 2017) was an American experimental psychologist known for his pioneering work in visual perception, especially the effect that bears his name, and in the development of ophthalmic instrumentation.
While also teaching in the psychology department at Stanford University, he designed or co-designed several innovative instruments for measuring properties of the eye, including eyetrackers,[9] auto-refractors,[10] and optical fundus scanners.
The FIT2000, sold and manufactured by PMI of Rockville, Maryland has also been installed worldwide into Armed forces for such things as fatigue detection in pilots and soldiers required to undertake military activities with severe sleep deprivation over many days.
Cornsweet continued to invent devices for measuring various properties of the eye and also to teach, first at the Baylor College of Medicine and later at the University of California, Irvine.
In 1999 Cornsweet retired from UC–Irvine and co-founded Visual Pathways, where his team developed an automated retinal imaging system intended for the diagnoses of glaucoma, cataracts, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration.
Visual Pathways folded into the Brien Holden Vision Institute after several years and successfully installing 24 breakthrough 3D fundus cameras, where from 2013 to 2015, Tom Cornsweet was Chief Scientist at Brien Holden Vision Diagnostics (formerly Quantum Catch),[13] a company developing very low-cost ophthalmic 3D fundus cameras and instruments for detection and monitoring of eye, brain and muscle disease primarily and principally for 3rd world countries which could not afford available instrumentation.