Laura Ann Waller is a computer scientist and Ted Van Duzer Endowed Associate Professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. She was awarded a

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifetim ...

Fellowship to develop microscopes to image deep structures within the brain in 2017 and won the 2018

SPIE SPIE (formerly the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, later the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It ...

Early Career Award.

Early life and education

Waller is from

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. It is at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, the south end of the Rideau Canal. Kingston is near the Thousand Islands, ...

. She studied at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. She earned her bachelor's degree in

Electronic Engineering Electronic engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering that emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flo ...

and Computer Science in 2004 and her Masters in 2005. During her undergraduate study she spent a year at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

as part of the

Cambridge–MIT Institute The Cambridge–MIT Institute, or CMI, was a partnership between the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2008, CMI issued a final report describing its ...

. Her Masters thesis considered the design of feedback loops and experimental testing techniques for integrated optics. In 2010 she completed her doctoral studies under the supervision of George Barbastathis where her thesis investigated developed new techniques to image

phase Phase or phases may refer to: Science *State of matter, or phase, one of the distinct forms in which matter can exist *Phase (matter), a region of space throughout which all physical properties are essentially uniform *Phase space, a mathematica ...

and

amplitude The amplitude of a periodic variable is a measure of its change in a single period (such as time or spatial period). The amplitude of a non-periodic signal is its magnitude compared with a reference value. There are various definitions of am ...

. She was a Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) student. She played on the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

Women's Varsity soccer team and was president of

The Optical Society Optica, founded as the Optical Society of America (later the Optical Society), is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals, organizes conferences and exhibitions, and ca ...

student chapter.

Career and research

Waller works on computational imaging. She joined

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 2010, where she worked as a research associate and lecturer. She joined

in 2012. Her research group focus on phase imaging, super-resolution microscopy and lensless imaging. She is a senior

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Berkeley Institute for Data Science The Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) is a central hub of research and education within University of California, Berkeley designed to facilitate data-intensive science and earn grants to be disseminated within the sciences. BIDS was init ...

. Waller was named as one of the

David and Lucile Packard Foundation The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private foundation that provides grants to not-for-profit organizations. It was created in 1964 by David Packard (co-founder of HP) and his wife Lucile Salter Packard. Following David Packard's dea ...

Fellow in 2014. That year she was also awarded a

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation is an American foundation established by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore and his wife Betty I. Moore in September 2000 to support scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements ...

Data-Driven Discovery Investigator. She is a

National Science Foundation CAREER Award The National Science Foundation CAREER award is the most prestigious award presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States Federal Government to support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through rese ...

holder, allowing her research group to build computational and experimental software for imaging 4D partially spatially coherent light. She has developed machine learning techniques for 3D microscopy. She was awarded tenure at

in 2016. In 2017 Waller was awarded an investigator award from the

. Waller was awarded the

Early Career Achievement Award in Academia in January 2018. Through the development of hardware for computational imaging, Waller has made several contributions to biomedical and industrial sciences. Her group develop open source software for imaging. She was one of the

EECS Rising Stars for 2018.

Awards and honors

*2019 Fellow of

*2018

Early Career Achievement Award in Academia *2016 Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty *2016 Best Paper Award, International Conference on Computational Photography *2012 The Optical Society Ivan P. Kaminow Outstanding Early Career Professional Prize *2021 The Optical Society of America

Adolph Lomb Medal The Adolph Lomb Medal, awarded by the Optical Society is a prize for young scientists (within 10 years of their highest degree) for their contributions to optics. It is named after Adolph Lomb, treasurer of the Optical Society of America from its fo ...

for important contributions to the advancement of computational microscopy and its applications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Waller, Laura Canadian emigrants to the United States MIT School of Engineering alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty American women computer scientists American computer scientists Computer engineers Living people Fellows of Optica (society) Women in optics People from Kingston, Ontario Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women