Dr. Rangaswamy Srinivasan

Dr. Rangaswamy Srinivasan

Category: Inventions and Innovations

Rangaswamy Srinivasan is an inventor at IBM Research. One of the famous inventions he has contributed to is LASIK. President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Technology on Feb 2, 2013 for his contributions to laser eye surgery.

In 1981, Srinivasan discovered that an ultraviolet excimer laser can be used to etch a living tissue precisely without causing any thermal damage to surrounding area. He named it Ablative Photodecomposition (APD). In 1983, Srinivasan collaborated with Stephen Trokel, an ophthalmic surgeon, to use APD for a surgery of the cornea. This led to development of LASIK. In 1998, Srinivasan was awarded the Biological Physics Prize by the American Physical Society. In 2012, Srinivasan along with two other scientists, James J. Wynne and Samuel Blum, of IBM Watson were honored with National Medal of Technology and Innovation by the President of The United States Barack Obama for breakthrough in Excimer laser that enabled LASIK Surgery.

Inducted into the US “Inventor Hall of Fame” in 2002, Srinivasan has spent 30 years at IBM’s T J Watson Research Center. He received both bachelors and master’s degrees in science from the University of Madras, in 1949 and 1950.