John Fisher

Founder and President

With 28 years of experience in multi-spectral and hyperspectral optical systems, John Fisher is known in the remote sensing community for his lens design and optical system engineering expertise.

John started his career at IBM, working in the optics lab for five years, developing Thin Film Optical Inspection Systems. From there he moved on to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), gaining experience in detector characterization, field deployments and lens design of tactical surveillance systems. Projects at NRL included dual-band FPA characterization, numerous airborne deployments with the PHILLS sensor, and completing the initial optical design of the COIS payload for the NEMO spacecraft.

His primary expertise, for which he is known worldwide, is that of designing and building Offner spectrometers and telescopes. He has designed the gratings and spectrographs for eight organizations, of which >30 are currently flying in commercial and tactical platforms. John’s space experience includes the designing and manufacturing of the Hyperpspectral Imager for Coastal Observing telescope and optics for Earth Remote Sensing from the International Space Station.

His latest projects are the Program Management of the NOAA Doppler Wind Temperature Sounder (SBIR Phase I), NASA DAGR Global Methane Mapper. John has a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Penn State University, with additional coursework in optics from the University of Connecticut and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Joseph Kujawski

Director of Engineering

Zach Burns

Director of Operations

Dan Guerin, PhD

Principal Instrument Scientist

Dan Guerin joined Brandywine Photonics in 2010 as Lead Engineer and Hyperspectral Imaging Scientist. Previously, Dan worked as a systems integrator at Lockheed Martin’s Enterprise Integration Group - now “The SI Organization” – where he performed systems integration studies for sensor systems.

Prior to Lockheed, Dan worked for EOIR Technologies providing on-site support to the Army’s Night Vision Laboratory. At The Night Vision Laboratory he developed calibration techniques for the COMPASS hyperspectral sensor and worked on the integration of two follow-on hyperspectral sensors. Dan studied physics at Franklin & Marshall College and earned a doctorate in physics at the University of Delaware, focusing on thin film synthesis and analysis. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Naval Research Laboratory where he studied the plasma chemistry of thin film deposition processes.

Dan is the Project Leader for a space-based dual Offner spectrograph mission.

Jeffrey Julian

Director of Manufacturing

Jeffrey Julian has 23 years of experience in infrared and laser opto-mechanical instrumentation.  Jeff is experienced in managing, designing, analyzing, testing, and building complete cryogenic IR camera systems, cryostats, tactical dewars, cryogenic mechanisms, athermalized lens and mirror mounts, laser crystal mounts, laser resonators, and IR detector (FPA) mounts.

Designs include facility-class custom cryogenic IR cameras and spectrographs for 10m class observatories (Keck, Gemini I and II, Gran Telescopio Canarias). Jeff has designed over 500 different cryostats for laboratory, observatory, and military use. Some of his original innovations include cryogenic stepper motors, complex switches, and associated mechanical components (bearings, valves, lead screws and rotation and translation mechanisms).

Jeff is currently developing the cryogenics for the Theater Weather Imaging and Cloud Characterization Sensor under Air Force SBIR. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ.