Time: 12:45 PM to 1:45 PM
Location: PAIS, Room 2540 and Zoom
Speaker: Dr. Christopher Wilcox, OSE Alumnus and AFRL
Abstract:
In this presentation, Dr. Christopher Wilcox of the US Air Force Research Laboratory will discuss adaptive optics and its applications for astronomy and aero-optical studies. Adaptive optics is a technology used to correct the distortions that light waves experience as they pass through a medium like the Earth's atmosphere or a turbulent airflow. Correction methods and cutting-edge technologies will be discussed with some examples from projects he has worked with directly. Dr. Wilcox has worked with the US Air Force and Naval Research Laboratories for over the last 20+ years and is a UNM alumni.
Biography:
Christopher C. Wilcox, PhD is an Electrical Engineer at the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Prior to this, Dr. Wilcox worked in the field of Adaptive Optics, Optical Interferometry, and Wavefront Sensing & Control at the US Naval Research Laboratory for 15 years. His research areas include optics, adaptive optics, aero-optics, mathematics, hardware interfacing, and modeling and simulation.
He has earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and has his Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of New Mexico. He earned his PhD in Optical Science and Engineering at the University of New Mexico in 2009 in which his dissertation topic was a model for atmospheric turbulence and holds several government patents.
Dr. Wilcox is a Research Fellow at the US Naval Postgraduate School at the Adaptive Optics Center of Excellence in National Security. He is a Fellow and Senior Member of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and has chaired many technical conferences and sessions. Dr. Wilcox is a University of New Mexico School of Engineering Distinguished Alumni. Previous work also includes working for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array outside of Socorro, New Mexico. Dr. Wilcox has also had many years of experience in the development of mobile applications for smartphones including Android and iOS as well as web development and assisted in the development of SPIE’s first smartphone apps as well as the highly utilized SPIE Conferences app (Biography from UNM School of Engineering Directed Energy page).
