Dr. Sakoglu Awarded With U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship

Dr. Unal “Zak” Sakoglu of the Computer Science Department was awarded with a U.S. Air Force Research Lab (ARFL) Summer Faculty Fellowship award for the summer of 2016.

Sakoglu won the award for his research proposal on “Applications of Infrared Sensor Technology.” He will be spending most of his summer at the Kirtland Air Force Base ARFL in Albuquerque, New Mexico, conducting applied research on infrared pupil imagers.

“This is a prestigious award which is usually given to faculty at top-tier research universities,” said Sakoglu. “Awarding it a second time shows AFRL’s continued interest in my research work. It will also give me the opportunity to explore, apply and obtain research grants from the AFRL, AFOSR and the DoD.”

This is not the first time Sakoglu has won this award. In 2015, he received the same award for his proposal, “Application of IR Sensor Technology: Nonuniformity Correction Algorithms for IR Pupil Imager.” He spent 12 weeks at the AFRL in Albuquerque, then presented and published his research with his collaborators at the Proceedings of SPIE Optics+Photonics Conference Volume Infrared Sensors, Devices, and Applications in San Diego, California. His research this summer will be along the same line of research as this past summer.

“Last summer in 2015, I applied general non-uniformity correction algorithms to an infrared pupil imager and modeled the behavior of a pupil imager under different flux conditions,” said Sakoglu. “This summer, I will develop non-uniformity algorithms specifically tailored for pupil imagers, which have unique properties other than regular infrared imagers.”

The award can also support a United States citizen graduate student during the summer to help with research. Sakoglu is currently looking for domestic graduate students who are interested in assisting him on infrared imaging research. If interested, Sakoglu can be reached at [email protected] or 903-886-5242.