Gerald Westheimer
Gerald Westheimer AM FRS (born 13 May 1924) is an Australian scientist at University of California, Berkeley researching the eye, its optics, and how we see details in space and in three dimensions. Life and career Westheimer was born on 13 May 1924 in Berlin into an observant Jewish family—long settled in Germany and traced back at least Joseph Aaron Westheimer who had been born in 1768 in Menzingen, Baden (Joseph was granted special residential status as a "protected Jew".) Westheimer is the younger of two sons. In 1938, state-sanctioned attacks against Jews in Nazi Germany prompted the family to emigrate to Australia, settling in Sydney. Shortly after arriving in Sydney, Westheimer completed high-school by self-study and enrolled in the professional Optometry program at the Sydney Technical College, from which he graduated with honours and the College Medal in 1943. While practising optometry he pursued further study, leading to a BSc in mathematics and physiology from Sydney University and submission of a thesis for the Fellowship of the Sydney Technical College. In 1951, Westheimer went to the US, first as a graduate student at Ohio State University (PhD, Physics-Physiological Optics) with Glenn A. Fry, influenced by Paul Fitts, and then