What if your contact lens could show you images …

Professor Babak A. Parviz, University of Washington

TUESDAY: August 3, 2010 2:00 P.M. in the H.J.E. Reid Auditorium

Abstract

Millions of people wear contact lenses everyday to improve their vision and quality of life. Recent advances in nanotechnology and building small devices have opened new possibilities in converting contact lenses into systems that can perform various tasks. The research group at the University of Washington has worked in the past few years on building small optical, electronic, and biosensing devices, and on integrating these devices into contact lenses. This presentation provides an overview of the progress to this date on building contact lenses for two main application areas: for displaying information to the user and for building systems that can continuously monitor the person’s health through assessing the biochemistry of the eye surface.

Speaker

Babak Parviz is the Gerald McMorrow Associate Professor of Innovation at the University of Washington. He received his graduate degrees in physics and electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. After completing his postdoctoral training in chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, he joined the University of Washington in 2003. His research is focused on nanotechnology, bionanotechnolgy, and microsystems. He is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and was selected as one of the top innovators under the age of 35 in the world by the MIT Technology Review in 2007. His research work has been put on display in the London Museum of Science and has been reported by hundreds of news organizations. Time Magazine chose his work as one of the top inventions of the year 2008. He is one of the organizers of the United States National Academies Frontiers of Engineering meeting for 2010.