Jerry Jacobs

Over the last 45 years, Professor Gerald H. Jacobs has authored more than 200 papers related to color vision. His discoveries have provided a basis for understanding the underpinnings of human color vision within the larger context of the evolution of the mammalian visual system. Professor Jacobs is a member of the Neuroscience Research Institute and the Department of Psychology at the University of California in Santa Barbara, where he has taken an interdisciplinary approach to characterizing the nature and distribution of the cone photopigments within and across mammalian species and understanding how variations in photoreceptor complement relate to differences in color vision capacity. Widely recognized as a leader among his generation of vision scientists, Professor Jacobs has been an inspiring mentor for generations of scientists who have shared his passion for understanding the diversity color vision in our world.

Steven Shevell

For over 35 years, Professor Shevell has contributed to the vision and particularly the color vision community in breaking new ground in research, training new researchers and providing service to the community.  In his experimental work, he has carefully integrated theoretical and experimental approaches in studies of how early mechanisms and context influence color perception.  He has artfully exploited the technique of hue cancellation to study adaptive processes, spatio-temporal constraints, memory and binocular integration in color perception.   Professor Shevell is the Eliakim Hastings Moore Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Chicago, Professor in the Section of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Department of Surgery, and in the Committee on Computational Neuroscience, and, also, immediate-past Chair of the Integrative Neuroscience Graduate Program.   In addition, he has served, over the years, on editorial boards of leading journals, review panels of leading granting agencies and on the boards of major research societies.  He is currently a member of the Directors' Committee of the ICVS.  His wise and equilibrated advice is sought after in our deliberations and personifies the voice of careful research, integrity and reason.                  

Françoise Viénot

Trained as a physicist, Professor Francoise Vienot was introduced to the mysteries of colour science by Yves Le Grand and she has carried forward his distinguished tradition. Her early work was on colorimetry: she was especially concerned with individual differences in colour matches, before the topic had become as fashionable as it later became. Her mastery of colorimetry led her to the work for which she is best known in the wider world: she developed an algorithm for simulating for the normal eye the appearance of scenes for the dichromat. This algorithm has found many practical applications, including an application for the iPhone that allows the user in real time to inspect the world as it appears to a protanope or deuteranope. Professor Vienot has contributed to many other aspects of colour science. She has published historical research on the colour system of Chevreul. She has published a textbook on colour science, as well as important papers on Maxwell's spot and macular pigment, on mesopic photometry, on the perception of gloss, and on the Benham-Fechner colours. She has a talent to take applied problems and use them to inspire fundamental research. For most of her career, Francoise Vienot has been based at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle; and this has had interesting influences on her science. She is an expert on plant pigments and is an authority on horticultural colours. The Museum brought her into contact with ecologists, a collaboration that led to the first experimental paper on the fruit signals that trees present to their disseminators. For nearly 20 years, she has marshalled all her considerable tact, patience and precision to bring to its conclusion CIE Technical Committee 1-36, which has prepared a physiologically based system of colorimetry. To our own Society, and to the IRGCVD from which it evolved, she has been an active and loyal contributor since 1974.