Samuel Genensky

Genensky died at his Santa Monica home on 26 June 2009, of complications from heart disease.

In 1990 a cataract operation dramatically improved the vision in his right eye (this is when he was stunned to realize that his wife Nancy was red-headed, not brunette as he had assumed for his entire marriage to that point), but the improvement was short-lived, and he was soon using Braille again.

In 1976 the Santa Monica Hospital invited Genensky to come to the hospital and create a center dedicated to assisting visually impaired persons to remain (or become) an integral part of the overall society. He (along with two colleagues) did make the move, and in 1978 the Center for the Partially Sighted began providing services as part of the hospital's operations (it became an independent organization in April 1983).

While working at RAND a co-worker, Paul Baran found Genensky slumped over an inclined drawing board while writing a company project. Baran remarked that "there has to be a better way for you to read and write." Genensky agreed and asked Baran to help him find that better way. Eventually, with additional help from other colleagues at RAND, The Aerospace Corporation, and the Polaroid Corporation, the designed and built the first practical closed-circuit television for the partially sighted, which was first demonstrated at the December 1968 annual conference of the American Academy of Optometry. A January 1971 article in Reader's Digest described the system ("Sam Genensky's Marvelous Seeing Machine"), which brought a flood of interest, and which sparked in Genensky a desire to create a center that would provide sight-impaired persons the necessary services to meet their special needs, and to encourage them to use all their senses (including any available eyesight) to remain an integral part of the human society. It was this new desire that led him to the Santa Monica Hospital and the eventual establishment of the Center for the Partially Sighted.

Genensky returned to Brown University in 1954 and received a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in 1958. At that time he was hired by the RAND Corporation and became a member of the senior staff in its Mathematics Department.

Genensky entered Brown University in 1945 and graduated with a BS degree in physics. He entered Harvard University in 1950 and received an MS degree in mathematics in 1951, after which he worked for the US Bureau of Standards as a mathematician in the Fire Protection Section of the Building Technology Division.

Genensky received elementary schooling (grades 1–8) at the Sylvia Ann Howland School in New Bedford, in special classes geared to visually impaired children. When he applied to attend high school at New Bedford High School, he was directed to the Perkins Institute for the Blind instead (in Watertown, Massachusetts). He attended Perkins for one year (1940–1941), where he learned Braille. At the end of that year he applied again to attend the regular high school, and this time he was accepted (the previous superintendent had left, and the acting superintendent's sister had been Genensky's teacher at the Howland School).

Samuel M. Genensky (26 July 1927 in New Bedford, Massachusetts – 26 June 2009 in Santa Monica, California) was an American computer scientist, best known as an inventor for devices to assist sight-impaired persons. He was also well known for his advocacy on behalf of the blind.