Carapezza honored at SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing

SPIE Fellow Edward M. Carapezza was honored at the recent SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing symposium with the Eric A. Lehrfeld Award. The award, established in 2003 by the SPIE Global Homeland Security Technical Group, honors efforts to apply photonics technologies to homeland security. It is named in honor of Eric Lehrfeld, who died in the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. Lehrfeld was the son of SPIE member Dan Lehrfeld, a past chair of the Global Homeland Security conference.

Craig Halvorson, co-chair with Sarka Southern of the recent 2009 Optics and Photonics in Global Homeland Security V conference at DSS 2009, said that for him one of the high points of the week was presenting the award to Ed Carapezza. Halvorson added, "The award recognizes outstanding contributions to Global Homeland Security, commemorating the victims of the 9/11 attacks on America, reminding and stimulating us all to apply our technology to better secure our homelands."

This year's award citation reads: "Edward M. Carapezza (DARPA and the University of Connecticut) is recognized for his creation and multiyear leadership of the SPIE program track in Defense, Homeland Security, and Law Enforcement, for his personal contributions to multi-agency technologist task forces assembled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and to his liaison with and guidance to academic centers of excellence focused on technologies for homeland security and homeland defense."