Prof Allan W. Snyder

Professor Allan W Snyder

Allan is the Foundation Head of the Optical Sciences Centre and Foundation Director of the Centre for the Mind. He holds the chair of Visual Sciences and also the chair of Optical Physics.

A recent newspaper article described him as "a fast - talking American as keen to discuss love and interpersonal relationships as he is ideas in the cognitive and physical sciences."

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America. His practical achievements have also been honoured by his election as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

He played a key role in creating the Centre for Visual Sciences and the $100 million Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre where he was a founding director. The Minister of Science and Technology singled out his work as the impetus for the $5.4 million grant in 1983 to set up Australian Optical Fibre Research Pty Ltd now owned by ADC Telecommunications.

Allan delivered the 1996 Mills Oration, "Shedding light on creativity", to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, last presented by the Governor General of Australia, the inaugural Edwin Flack lecture for the Australian Olympic Committee, and the keynote address "Mindset Breaking" at the conference "the mind's new science".

He is the recipient of various awards, including the 1997 International Australia Prize, the 1996 Massey Prize and medal of the British Institute of Physics, the Thomas Rankin Lyle medal of the Australian Academy of Sciences, its highest award in physics and mathematics, the Sutherland Memorial medal of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences, the CSIRO Medal for Research Achievement, the Edgeworth David medal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and the Silver Jubilee medal of the Royal Society of Victoria.
Allan Snyder receives the 1997 International AustraliaPrize from the Prime Minister,John Howard, at Parliament House. 
(Photo credit: AUSPIC)		 Prime Minister awards Allan the Australia Prize.

He has been awarded various fellowships, including the Simon Guggenheim fellowship at Yale University and the Royal Society of London Guest Research Fellowship at Cambridge University. He served on the 1977 Marconi International award evaluating outstanding scientific achievement. He is a former associate editor of the Optical Sciences of America.

He has published some 260 papers in refereed international journals and several books. His comprehensive book with J.D.Love `Optical Waveguide Theory', is now available in Chinese and Russian. His book 'Photoreceptor Optics' with R. Menzel defined a new area of the visual sciences. He is the recipient of the DSc degree from the University of London, the PhD from University College London, the MS degree from Harvard University and an SM degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Allan is concerned with unifying nonlinear waves from the perspective of linear waves, especially with applications to light guiding light. His biological interests concern understanding the global strategies of the mind as discussed on the Centre for the Mind website.

Selected Papers.

Physical Sciences.

  • "Accessible Solitons", Science 276, 1538-1541(1997), A.W. Snyder and D.J. Mitchell.

  • "Big incoherent solitons", Physical Review Letters 80, 1422-1424 (1998), A.W. Snyder and D. J. Mitchell.

  • "Partially coherent solitons of variable shape", Physical Review Letters 81, 4632-4636 (1998), N.N. Akhmediev, W. Krolikowski and A.W. Snyder.

  • "Interacting self-guided beams viewed as particles: Lorentz force derivation", Physical Review Letters 77, 271-273 (1996), D.J. Mitchell, A.W. Snyder and L. Poladian.

  • "Dynamic Spatial Solitons", Physical Review Letters 72, 1012-1016 (1994), A.W. Snyder, S.J. Hewlett and D.J. Mitchell.

  • "Mighty morphing spatial solitons and bullets", Optics Letters 22, 16-18 (1997), A.W. Snyder and D. J. Mitchell.

  • "Solitons simplified", Optics and Photonics News, vol 8 , no 12, p44 (1997), A.W. Snyder

  • "Linear Perspective to Soliton Dynamics", Optics and Photonics News, vol 7, no 12, p27(1996) A. W. Snyder.

  • "Unification of Linear and Nonlinear Wave Optics," Modern Physics Letters B 23, 1479-1506 (1995), A.W. Snyder, D.J. Mitchell and Yu.S. Kivshar.

  • "Stable black self-guided beams of circular symmetry in bulk Kerr law," Optics Letters 17, 789-791 (1992), A.W. Snyder, L. Poladian and D.J. Mitchell.

  • "Spiralling spatial solitons", Optics Communications 85, 59-62 (1991), L. Poladian, A.W. Snyder and D.J. Mitchell.

    • Mind and Visual Sciences.

  • "Breaking Mindset" , Mind and Language 13, 1-10 (1997), A.W. Snyder.

  • "Autistic artists give clues to human cognition", Perception 26, 93-96, (1997), A.W. Snyder and M. Thomas.

  • "Shedding light on creativity", The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Medicine 26, 709-711 (1996), A.W. Snyder.

  • "Mind, Body, Performance", Olympic Review June/July, 71-74, (1999), A.W. Snyder.

  • "Is Integer Arithmetic Fundamental to Mental Processing? the mind's secret arithmetic", Proceedings of the Royal Society 587-592 (1999), A.W. Snyder and D.J. Mitchell.

  • "Human vision: Revealing the artist's touch", Nature 331, 117-118 (1988), A.W.Snyder, and H.B. Barlow.

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  • "Theory of comparative eye design", In Vision: Coding and Efficiency (Cambridge University Press). Edited by C. Blakemore (1990), A.W. Snyder, T. Bossomaier and A. Hughes.

  • "Optical Image Quality and the cone mosaic", Science 231, 499-501 (1986), A.W.Snyder, R.J. Bossomaier and A. Hughes.

  • "The physics of vision in compound eyes", In Handbook of Sensory Physiology Vol V11 / 6A, Ch 5, 225-313 (1979) Springer - Verlag, A.W.Snyder.