Stephen Eikenberry, PhD
Professor of Applied Optics / Professor of Physics
Stephen Eikenberry is currently a professor of applied optics in the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL) and a professor of physics in the Physics Department at the University of Central Florida. He is a co-founder of the CREOL Astrophotonics program.
Professional Credentials
Research Interests
My research focuses on studying black holes, neutron stars, Dark Energy, gravitational waves, and extrasolar planets. I design and build astronomical instruments (primarily infrared and optical) to carry out these observations, with related applications in remote sensing, space domain awareness, telecoms, and biomedical imaging and spectroscopy.
education background
- As an undergraduate, I attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, I double-majored in physics and literature, was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity, played varsity water polo, captained the MIT rugby team, and was a member of the Sigma Pi Sigma physics honor society. My bachelor’s thesis under Prof. David Staelin was on planetary radio emission. I graduated from MIT with two bachelor’s degrees in 1990.
In 1992, I entered graduate school in the Astronomy Department at Harvard University. I worked under Dr. Giovanni Fazio, and completed my doctoral thesis on infrared instrumentation and pulsar studies in 1997.
Professional Experience
I was the Sherman H. Fairchild Postdoctoral Prize Fellow in Physics at Caltech from 1997 to 1998. I then moved to positions as Assistant Professor and tenured Associate Professor in Astronomy at Cornell University. In 2003, I became Professor of Astronomy and then Professor of Physics at the University of Florida, before moving to my current position at UCF/CREOL in 2021.