Meet the Team

Photon Engineering’s in-house optical engineering talent has over 100 years of experience. Combined with our qualified out-of-house network of engineers in Tucson’s Optics Valley, Photon Engineering has become one of the leading optical consulting groups in North America. Call us today at 1-520-733-9557 to discuss your engineering needs.

Rich Pfisterer

Richard Pfisterer

President and Co-Founder

  • Regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on scatter theory/measurement and stray light analysis.
  • 35+ years of experience in optical design for imaging and non-imaging systems, software development, analysis of optical systems, beam propagation and physical optics modeling/simulation.
  • Co-Developer of FRED optical engineering software.
  • M.S. and B.S. in Optical Engineering (University of Rochester).
Pat McNenny

Patrick McNenny

Chief Executive Officer

  • 30+ years of experience, designing and analyzing optical systems in the aerospace, commercial imaging, and medical device industries.
  • Extensive optical manufacturing experience.
  • B.S. in Optical Engineering (University of Rochester).
Scott Ellis

Dr. K. Scott Ellis

Senior Optical Engineer

  • 25+ years of experience in lens design, optical systems imaging analysis, stray light analysis, and design and analysis of illumination systems.
    Extensive program experience to include LSST (NOAO), Discovery Telescope (Lowell Observatory), TMT MOBIE (UC Santa Barbara), and IRIS (SAO-Harvard).LEAP, the Conformal Optics Program (mid-wave IR sensors with aspheric domes), Javelin (scanning long-wave IR sensor), Picasso and Lidar Tech Sat.
  • Ph.D., M.S. in Optics (University of Arizona) and B.S. in Optical Engineering (University of Rochester).
Jim Harvey

Dr. James Harvey

Senior Optical Engineer

  • 50+ years of expertise: Optical systems design and image analysis, surface scatter phenomena, scalar diffraction theory, X-ray/EUV imaging, sparse array imaging, adaptive optics, optical properties of infrared materials, remote sensing.
  • Industry expert accredited with over 200 technical publications and conference presentations in the areas of optical science and engineering.
  • Ph.D., M.S. in Optics (University of Arizona) and A.B. in Physics (Kansas Wesleyan University).