Update 2010
I am presently a Graduate Research Assistant, PhD Candidate Optics, CREOL - The College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida. My research interests have been focused on the design and analysis of optical systems without rotational symmetry. This includes systems that are intentionally designed without symmetry, or misaligned optical systems that exhibit rotational symmetry in their nominal state. Having a mathematical framework to understand the effects of misalignment perturbations, concepts have been developed that can dramatically reduce assembly tolerances. Most recently I had the opportunity to work with scientists from the LSST Corporation to develop an alignment plan for the Large-Synoptic-Survey-Telescope. While my research has been mainly focused on astronomical telescopes, numerous other applications exist, e.g. optical testing applications, microlithography, tolerancing etc.

Award Year 2008
Tobias Schmid, a PhD Candidate at CREOL - College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, was selected as the 2008 Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship awardee. Tobias' thesis supervisor is Jannick Rolland PhD, Professor of Optics and Computer Science, College of Optics & Photonics, CREOL, University of Central Florida. The award was presented at the SPIE Europe Optical Systems Design Symposium on 2 September 2008, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, Scotland, UK by Tina Kidger. The award consisting of a $5,000 cash grant, supported by the Michael Kidger Memorial Scholarship Fund, was received for Tobias by his thesis supervisor, Professor Jannick Roland.

Tobias' research focus is on applying and extending Nodal Aberration Theory, which describes aberration fields of misaligned optical systems, originally developed in the 1970s by Kevin Thompson. A recent contribution has been the development of a coordinate system independent formulation of the method for locating aberration field centers. This new ‘real ray’ based approach enables a working optical designer using a commercial optical design package to directly predict aberration field nodal behavior as a function of misalignment. The previous methods, based on an extended paraxial treatment by Buchroeder, were limited to a specific type of tilt and decenter model whereas a designer typically has access to, and uses, up to 5 different methods for managing tilt and decenter modeling.