Past President
Christopher Dainty
Christopher Dainty
National University of Ireland, Galway
School of Physics
University Road, Galway,
Ireland
Office of Past President
Professor Christopher Dainty is the Chair of Applied Physics and the Science Foundation Ireland Professor at The National University of Ireland, Galway. His research interests are in optical imaging, scattering and propagation. In these areas he has co-authored or edited 6 books, approximately 150 peer-reviewed papers and 250 conference presentations.
From 1974–1978, he was a Lecturer in Physics at Queen Elizabeth College of the University of London. Prof. Dainty joined the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester in 1978 and the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in July 1982. He became Pilkington Professor of Applied Optics at Imperial College London in January 1984. In October 2002, Prof. Dainty started an extended appointment as Science Foundation Ireland Professor at The National University of Ireland, Galway and in 2005, he was appointed to the Chair of Applied Physics. He is simultaneously on extended leave from Imperial College London.
He is the 1984 recipient of the International Commission of Optics Prize, the 1993 Thomas Young Medal and Prize (IoP), the 2003 C.E.K. Mees Medal and Prize (OSA) and the Optics and Photonics Division Prize 2004 (IoP). He is also a Fellow of The Optical Society, SPIE, The Institute of Physics (UK) and The European Optical Society.
Dainty served as an elected Director at Large on the OSA Board of Directors from 1983–1985 and from 2005–2007. He has served as ICO Secretary-General (1987–1990), President (1990–1993) and Past President (1993–1996); SPIE Board Member (1994–1996); President of The European Optical Society (2002–2004). Prof. Dainty also served on the Council of the UK Institute of Physics (1996–1999).
