Mathew Alpern first earned an O.D. degree in 1941 from the Northern Illinois College of Optometry. He served in the US Army during World War II, and then pursued his undergraduate degree at the University of Florida. Alpern went on to earn M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physiological optics at Ohio State University. After a short post at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, USA, he joined the faculty of the University of Michigan. In 1963, he was named Professor of Physiological Optics, a position he held until his retirement in 1991. That year, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

In 1984, he received OSA’s Edgar D. Tillyer Award “for many and outstanding contributions to visual science, particularly color vision, and for providing a benchmark standard of scientific achievement for the vision community.”

Alpern passed away in 1996.