[visionlist] Jack Yellott

[Andrew Watson]

My first memories of Jack are probably from Sarasota, probably late at night, Jack sitting cross-legged and barefoot in earnest scientific conversation, his words interleaved with an enigmatic smile, punctuating his remarks with a cigarette. He was certainly one of my role models back then, kind of a scientific hippy with a swashbuckling persona in a relatively staid vision community. He carried with him an outlaw aura, confirmed by stories of misadventures in Mexico with Albert Ahumada, Dave Nagel, and other reprobates. In later years he transitioned from wild in many dimensions to wild mainly in scientific surmise. He always had a unique take on any vision science question. 

Among the things I learned from Jack: photoreceptor sampling lattices and their consequences (desert island disks!), intensity-dependent spatial summation, triple correlation and texture statistics, how to correct printed text for ocular blur. He was always excited about whatever he was working on, and the excitement was infectious.

In recent years, I had the great good fortune to connect with Jack in a new scientific collaboration. As part of a larger modeling effort, I was interested in modeling the pupil reflex, but was not sure I had the fortitude to read all those boring old papers. Jack was recently retired, with plenty of time and fortitude, and he appeared never to have been bored in his life. We joined forces. He read all those papers, and convinced me that they were actually interesting. Our intellectual symbiosis was both fun and efficient, and ultimately resulted in a paper in JOV.

Much of our collaboration was conducted on the beach in Florida. We were fortunate to have this documented by Jack’s wife Dorothea, who produced the beautiful image below. The original sits in a place of honor on my desk at home, and will now remind me of Jack until I join him at that great beach party in the hereafter.

The time I spent working with Jack was a joy: for the lengthy emails, for the challenging conversations, for the creative ideas; but most of all for the wonder of just being in the presence of this remarkable person. He was one of a kind. He will be missed. I miss him now.









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