Dr. Messner was born in Chicago, IL on 24 October 1957. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Clarkson College of Technology, Potsdam, NY in 1979 and 1981 respectively. From 1981 to 1982 Dr. Messner was a member of the technical staff at the MITRE Corporation working on error correcting codes for the MILSTAR satellite system. In 1982 Dr. Messner received a fellowship and conducted his Ph.D. research in the Applied Optics Branch of the Optical Sciences Division at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. under the direction of Dr. Harold H. Szu. Dr. Messner was awarded the Ph.D. degree in May 1985. In addition to teaching he consults regularly with industry in the areas of optical signal processing, real time digital image processing, and the development of smart visual sensors. Dr. Messner has been a member of the Executive Committee of the New Hampshire Section of the IEEE since 1985. He is a member of IEEE, SPIE, Eta Kappa Nu, and Sigma Xi.
