About the Author:
James L. Harris, Sr. served in the military from 1944 to 1946, and again during the Korean War from 1950 to 1952. He received a Bronze Star for his service in Korea. He obtained a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State College in 1949. Following his second military tour he was employed by the Willow Run Research Center, University of Michigan from 1952 to 1954. He worked on the design of radar systems for active missile defense during that period. In 1954 he joined the staff of the Visibility Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California where he served for 25 years. During that period he held various positions including Branch Head, Manager of Research, Associate Director, and Director. He held appointments as a lecturer with the Department of Applied Physics and Information Science Department, UCSD. His primary research activities at the Visibility Laboratory included research as to the capabilities and limitations of all types of light-sensing devices, the development of computer techniques for the extraction of reliable data from photographs, and the application of the labs vision research data to the topic of visibility and visual search in real-world situations. During his tenure at the Visibility Laboratory he received annual appointments for 20 years to membership in the National Academy of Science, National Research Council, Committee on Vision. He was an invited speaker at three national seminars sponsored by the Vision Committee where he presented lectures on visual search. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the Optical Society of America and served as their official lecturer for a two-year period. The Visibility Laboratory was named by NASA as the lead laboratory in studies made during two Gemini space flights to determine whether prolonged weightlessness resulted in a reduction in the visual acuity of the astronauts. Those contacts resulted in his being named Principal Investigator in a series of grants from NASA to study the role of vision in aircraft midair collisions. In 1971 that research led to his being called by the Department of Justice as an expert in litigation associated with an aircraft midair collision. Since that time, he has been retained as an expert in over 120 midair collisions. He became Director Emeritus of the Visibility Laboratory when he accepted an early retirement in 1979 and formed Harris Visibility Studies, Inc. He has served as an expert in over 1,000 cases involving the analysis of visibility issues in all types of accidents, each of which involved questions as to whether the parties involved would have been able to visually acquire information that would have allowed them to avoid the accident. James L. Harris II began working part-time for Harris Visibility Studies, Inc. in 1979 while he was still in high school. During his tenure with HVSI from 1979 to 1985 he took course work that included Computer Animation, 3-D Modeling, Animation and Rendering, and Autodesk 3D Studio Modeling, Animation and Rendering. He entered the Air Force in 1985 and received training as a Jet Engine Mechanic. He finished his Air Force tour in 1988 and joined the staff of the North Island Naval Air Station Depot in Aircraft Engine Repair. In 1991 he rejoined his father at Harris Visibility Studies, Inc. He played a primary role in photography and video recording, light measurements, accident site visits, calculations of sun and moon conditions, courtroom exhibit preparations, computer image processing, and 3D Studios computer animation and simulation. In 1992 he co-authored, with his father, a paper titled Forensic Photography and Nighttime Visibility Issues, Journal of Forensic Sciences, July 1992.
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