Presenter - Jennifer Kruschwitz

Dr. Jennifer Kruschwitz, Optical Interference Coating Designer
Afternoon Breakout Session

Connecting Optics Learning Outcomes through Color by use of a Monochromator

This presentation will describe how the monochromator, can be used to teach elementary to advanced topics in optics. A monochromator consists of a light source, two narrow slits, and a dispersing element (e.g. prism or diffraction grating) such that white light is separated into a continuous color wavelength spectrum in the visible. The combination of these simple components can be used to teach lecture topics such as ray tracing and refraction for geometrical optics, diffraction for physical optics, and reinforce more complicated mathematical constructs such as Fourier transforms and convolutions. The monochromator can also be used for color measurement in the laboratory using a prism or grating depending on the concurrent lecture class. Optics students will see this device multiple times from their first year through their junior year. Each time they revisit the device, they will be introduced to new concepts that build upon previous lessons, keeping pace with the evolution of their curriculum.

Bio

Dr. Jennifer Kruschwitz has been an optical interference coating designer for over 30 years. She earned her B.S. and M.S. in Optics from the University of Rochester and worked in optical coatings for companies such as Itek Optical Systems, the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, and Bausch and Lomb. She left industry in 1998 to start her own consulting company, JK Consulting. She has served as President of the Rochester Local Section of the OSA, and on the Board of Directors for the OSA. In 2012, she won Digital Rochester’s Technology Woman of the Year for her contributions to optics and for helping women in her field. She earned her Ph.D. in Color Science from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2015 where she was a Macbeth-Engel Fellow. She has been an Assistant Professor at the UofR’s Institute of Optics since 2015. Professor Kruschwitz holds five patents, authored dozens of peer-reviewed papers, and has written the Field Guide of Colorimetry and Fundamental Color Modeling with SPIE published in 2018. Lastly, Professor Kruschwitz holds a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo through Kukkiwon in South Korea.