Narkis Shatz, Ph.D.

Narkis Shatz, Ph.D. is one of the inventors and program lead of the ARON (Augmented Reality Optical Narrowcasting) technology for SureFire, LLC. Dr. Shatz has been a consultant with SureFire for the last several years, developing this cutting edge technology.

Dr. Shatz’s special interests are in computational physics, methodologies for inverse engineering and nonimaging optics. Dr. Shatz has won the SAIC scientific publication award four times. He has authored dozens of papers on nonimaging optics and holds 30 patents (incl. applications pending), with his fundamental contributions in this area internationally recognized.

Prior to his time with SureFire, Dr. Shatz was with SAIC for 26 years as a Chief Scientist. He was involved in numerous interdisciplinary efforts, leading advanced research and development of large-scale scientific software, modeling, optimization and prototyping. Much of this work was as a program manager on DARPA-funded optics programs. Dr. Shatz has been on the technical committee of SPIE’s nonimaging optics conference for the past 14 years and organized and chaired the International Nonimaging Optics Workshop for 10 years. He earned a B.Sc. in Aeronautical Engineering as well as a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the Technion in Israel.

Detailed scientific contributions and list of patents can be found here:

John Bortz, Ph.D.

John Bortz, Ph.D. is one of the inventors of the ARON (Augmented Reality Optical Narrowcasting) technology for SureFire, LLC. Since 2013, Dr. Bortz has served as a full-time consultant for SureFire, LLC, where he designs optics for personal lighting devices and researches new technologies for free-space optical communications systems. He has fourteen patents to his name, has authored over thirty technical papers, and is coauthor of two chapters of Nonimaging Optics, a well-known book on nonimaging optical design.

Dr. Bortz has many years of experience in the design of nonimaging optical systems, development of nonimaging optical design methods, electro-optical sensor modeling, and sensor performance analysis. He has designed optics for solar-energy systems, automotive headlamps, video projectors, flashlights, gun lights, infrared countermeasures, fiber-optic illuminators, nonimaging optical sensors, and optical communications systems.

He is co-discoverer of fundamental upper limits on the flux-transfer efficiency of axisymmetric and translationally symmetric nonimaging optical devices, and co-developer of methods for overcoming these limits through the use of optical systems having broken rotational or translational symmetry. Dr. Bortz developed the generalized functional method of nonimaging optical design, which can be used to design both high-flux-transfer concentrators, beam-shaping optics, and imaging optics.

Mark D. Squire

Mark D. Squire, serves as Senior Engineer for SureFire LLC, the creators of the ARON (Augmented Reality Optical Narrowcasting) technology. In his role as a special projects coordinator, Squire has a career spanning weapons systems and sensors to space opto-electronics. He has over 25 years of extensive experience with DOD, DARPA and commercial program management ranging from infrared high-speed missile tracking systems to anti-submarine warfare sensors and IED detection robotics. Squire’s research, development and implementation spans electro-optic systems, space hardware, acoustics, robotics and weapon mounted sensor systems including management of complex technology programs.

Squire has extensive experience in digital and analog design including: control systems, data acquisition systems, acoustic systems and optoelectronics. His experience includes high temperature electronics design, space qualified and radiation tolerant electronics design and fabrication, military sonobuoy design and low rate production, adaptive optics using guide star technologies, high speed electro-optics and feedback control systems. Squire holds multiple patents in varied electronics, mechanics and electro-optics fields. He holds a B.S. Electronics Engineering, Chapman University and graduated the Electrical Engineering / Computer Science Program (EECS), University of California San Diego.