Derek Burrell Selected as Fulbright U.S. Scholar for 2023-2024 for Israel

Wyant College PhD student, Derek Burrell, has been selected as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar for 2023-2024 for Israel. The Fulbright Scholar Awards program is defined as prestigious and competitive fellowships that provide unique opportunities for scholars to teach and conduct research abroad. Fulbright scholars also play a critical role in U.S. public diplomacy, establishing long-term relationships between people and nations.

As a new Fulbright Scholar, starting in January 2024, Derek will be conducting postdoctoral research on characterizing and denoising hyperspectral imagery for superresolution tracking through scattering media. This research will take him directly to Israel to work with collaborators there. UArizona has a history of celebrating high-achieving Fulbright Scholars, for the 2022-2023 year University of Arizona is tied for No. 1 among U.S. research institutions producing Fulbright Scholars and set a new university record with 17 Fulbright Scholars. Read more about this news. 

Derek will graduate with his Ph.D. in May 2023 after working with his advisor, Prof. Ron Driggers, at the Wyant College as well as at the Directed Energy Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory located at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. His research interests include beam control and imaging through turbulence. He has worked on developing techniques for phase compensation and active target tracking, with an emphasis on mitigating laser speckle in applications involving wavefront sensing and coherent imagery. Derek spoke on his current research, "I currently focus on combating laser speckle and atmospheric turbulence in active tracking and wavefront sensing. Scattering is rather unfamiliar territory, however, and I’ll be working [as a Fulbright Scholar] with world-renowned experts in that field to solve challenging and interesting problems." Now, as a Fulbright Scholar, many more exciting research developments are sure to result from his hard work.

Derek also said "It feels like the stars aligned for this to happen, and I couldn’t be more grateful to join the ranks of Fulbright Scholars. I owe huge thanks to my advisors, Ron Driggers and Mark Spencer, for their longstanding support and commitment to my professional growth."

Prof. Ron Driggers speaks highly of Derek, saying, "Derek is one of the brightest people that I have ever worked with.  He is really making an impact in the area of long-range active imaging and tracking."

Congratulations, Derek!