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Thomas L. Koch’s term as dean of the Wyant College of Optical Sciences has been defined by 13 years of tremendous growth amidst the continuing explosion of applications and demand for new optics and photonics technologies. Provost Ron Marx said, “Dean Koch has led the Wyant College of Optical Sciences with outstanding leadership and unwavering dedication. He has been a champion of one of our unique strengths in science and engineering here at the University of Arizona. We are deeply grateful for his service.”

A new award of $4.5M is set to fund CHIRP, the CHanneled Infrared Polarimeter, a compact tool that can provide scientists with extremely accurate data essential, and previously unattainable across all conditions, for long-term climate change modeling. Principal Investigator (PI) Meredith Kupinski, associate professor of optical sciences at the Wyant College of Optical Sciences, and Science PI Sylvia Sullivan, assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the College of Engineering, are leading the project as part of NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Instrument Incubator Program (IIP). NASA Press Release. The Instrument Incubator Program funds novel instruments, like CHIRP, to launch new technologies for future Earth-observing missions focused on pursuing pressing Earth science phenomena.

Clarissa DeLeon, optical sciences PhD student advised by Associate Professor Meredith Kupinski, won a SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science) best presentation award in the session Mechanical and Other Engineering, for her oral presentation titled "Mapping Sky Polarization Under Different Atmospheric Conditions," at the 2024 National Diversity in STEM (NiDSTEM) Conference, held in Phoenix from October 31 to November 2.