“I first met Jannick through her husband, Kevin Thompson, who was my manager at Optical Research Associates,” says Synopsys scientist William Cassarly. “That provided me with the opportunity to work with Jannick and her students. Those meetings were often the highlight of my week, and for that I will be forever indebted to Jannick. In addition, some of those interactions were the basis for software features that are now the standards for illumination software. One example is the LightTools® and LucidShape® Freeform Design Feature, which is ‘the’ commercially available illumination design tool for Freeform optics. The algorithm used, was strongly influenced by the research and contributions from two of Jannick’s students, Florian Fournier and Cristina Canavesi. Without those interactions, this design feature would probably not exist, and freeform illumination design would not be the same. Jannick is able to see connections between disparate communities, and her consummate leadership brings together contributors from those communities to make new things happen. Her technical and leadership contributions to the field are phenomenal; there are many people, like myself, who consider themselves fortunate to have worked with Jannick. Through her efforts and ability to bring together the right people and organizations, we’ve been able to change illumination tolerancing from an art to a science.”
