Faculty

Short Biography

Jennifer D. T. Kruschwitz received her BS and MS in Optics from the University of Rochester in 1989 and 1995 respectively. She earned her PhD degree from Rochester Institute of Technology in Color Science in 2015. Her dissertation was entitled Specialized Color Targets for Spectral Reflection Reconstruction of Magnified Images. She has worked as an optical coating engineer her entire career and worked for Itek Optical Systems, the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, and Bausch & Lomb. In 1998, she started her own consulting company, JK Consulting, and over the past three decades she has been the lead coating designer for products such as Electronic Theatre Control’s Source Four PAR MCM, Steris’ Harmony examination lighting, the IMAX Laser Cinema Projector, and Perriquest’s Laser Blocking Eyewear for airline pilots. She is also currently the technical sales support for OptiLayer Software for North and South America, the Middle East, and Australia. She has been teaching at the Institute since 2007, and as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona since 2011. Dr. Kruschwitz holds five patents, two patents pending, and has authored articles in over twenty publications or proceedings in the areas of optical interference coatings and color. In 2012 she was awarded Digital Rochester’s Technology Woman of the Year for her innovations in optics and her support of women entering and succeeding in this high technology field. Dr. Kruschwitz published her first book, A Field Guide to Colorimetry and Fundamental Color Modeling, through SPIE Press in 2018. She is a Senior Member of Optica, where she is currently on the Advisory Board for Optics and Photonics News, held a position on the Board of Directors from 2004-5, President of the Rochester Local Section in 2007, and Technical Committee Member for the Optical Interference Coating Topical Meeting since 1997. She is also a 4^th Degree Black Belt in taekwondo with Kukkiwon World Taekwondo Headquarters in Korea.