Authors

Pablo Artal is a physicist, Professor of Optics and founder of the Optics Laboratory at the University of Murcia, an internationally recognised centre for visual optics. He earned his PhD in Physics from the Complutense University of Madrid and continued his training at the University of Cambridge and the Institut d’Optique in Orsay. His research has helped develop new ways to study the eye and improve the diagnosis and correction of vision, with applications now used in scientific and clinical instruments.

He has published more than 500 scientific papers and holds around 40 international patents. His honours include Spain’s King Jaime I Prize for New Technologies, the Juan de la Cierva National Research Award, the Edwin H. Land Medal (2013), jointly presented by Optica (then OSA) and the Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T), for his contributions to advances in diagnostic and correction methods in visual optics, and the Edgar D. Tillyer Award from Optica (then OSA, 2019) for the pioneering use of optical and photonic technologies to understand the human visual system and improve the diagnosis and correction of vision. In 2021 he received the Medal of the Royal Spanish Society of Physics (RSEF).

Alongside his scientific work, he writes essays and accessible nonfiction. His books combine specialist knowledge, experience and a personal perspective to make complex subjects clear to general readers. He is the author of Visión de lejos and the What Should I Know? series.