Dereniak Receives 2015 SPIE President’s Award
Eustace Dereniak of University of Arizona honored.
SPIE Fellow Eustace L. Dereniak, professor emeritus of optical sciences at University of Arizona (USA) who was SPIE president in 2012, has received the 2015 SPIE President’s Award for his lifetime of service to SPIE and the greater optics and photonics community.
Dereniak, who has taught at UA since receiving his PhD there in 1976, retired from teaching last fall. He is being honored for his involvement in optics education as well as his achievements in R&D with industry, academia, and government.
He is an internationally recognized expert in infrared detectors and systems whose research has contributed to breakthroughs in medicine, astronomy, and defense. His projects have found application in surveillance aircraft, camouflage systems, and snapshot image spectrometers for the detection of anti-tank missiles.
Dereniak received the UA College of Optical Sciences Award of Distinction for Undergraduate Teaching in 2006, and he has mentored over 60 postgraduates at UA. He also has taught courses for SPIE, the US Air Force, University of Michigan, New Mexico State University, University of Hawaii, University of Central Florida, and West Point Military Academy, where he received the US Army Commander’s Award for Public Service in 2009.
NASA recognized his service in 2001 with a certificate of recognition, and University of Arizona named an endowed scholarship for an undergraduate in optics in his honor.
In addition to being a past president of SPIE, he has served on the SPIE Board of Directors and numerous governance and conference committees. In accepting the award at SPIE Optics + Photonics in August, Dereniak noted that he has been an SPIE member since 1972.
Dereniak has coauthored three books on optical sciences and contributed to over 100 refereed articles in the scientific and technical literature.
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