DEFRERE Denis
Collaborateur
Faculté des Sciences
Département d'astrophysique, géophysique et océanographie (AGO)
Planetary & Stellar systems Imaging Laboratory
- ULiège address
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Bât. B5C Planetary & Stellar systems Imaging Laboratory (PSILab)
Quartier Agora
Allée du six Août 19c
4000 Liège 1
Belgique
- ULiège phone number
- +32 4 3669713
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- Personal website (s)
- Mon site personnel
- University degrees
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2005: Civil Engineer in Physics (Université de Liège)
2007: DEA in Astrophysics (Université de Liège)
2009: PhD in Sciences (Université de Liège)
Biography
Graduated as a civil engineer physicist from the University of Liège in 2005, Denis Defrère slowly slipped into astronomy during his final year of studies at the European Space Agency (ESA) on the LISA project, a space interferometer for the detection of gravitational waves. Under the co-supervision of Jean Surdej (Full Professor) and Olivier Absil (FNRS Research Associate), Denis Defrère undertook a doctoral thesis on the Darwin project, a space interferometer dedicated to the search for life in the universe. After his thesis, he completed a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute in Bonn before flying to the United States where he became deputy head of the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer, a NASA interferometer located in the Arizona desert. Back at the University of Liège in 2016, Denis Defrère has work at the Centre Spatial de Liège (CSL) and is now a scientific collaborator of the PSILab group. Since 2020, he is full-time professor of Astronomy at KU Leuven.
Press:
- Launch of Europe's largest astronomy network (2021, CNRS news)
- Stellar Dust Survey Paves Way for Exoplanet Missions (NASA, UoA news, 2nd author, 2018)
- Waves of lava seen in Io's largest volcanic crater (Forbes, Berkeley news, 2017)
- Scientists caught a new planet forming for the first time ever (Washington post, Nature podcast, 2015)
- An image of a whole planetary system (Max Planck Society, LBTO news, 2015)
- Lava Lake on Moon of Jupiter Revealed in Remarkable Detail (National Geographic, 2015)
- Telescope To Seek Dust Where Other Earths May Lie (NASA, ULiège, 2015, 1st author)
- VLTI Detects Exozodiacal Light (ESO news, 2014, 3rd author)
- Astronomers Gear Up to Discover Earth-like Planets (Astrobiology, UoA news, 2nd author, 2013)
- Dust in the neighborhood of stellar habitable zones (University of Paris, 2nd author, 2013)
Research field
- Astrophysique
- Instrumentation et méthodes en physique
- Sciences de l'espace
- Télédétection
- Lentilles et miroirs
- Optique
Duties or mandates
- Professor of Astronomy (KU Leuven)
- Distinguish Campus Colleague (University of Arizona)
- FRS-FNRS Scientific Research Worker
Scientific distinctions
- NASA honor award (2020)
- Prix NASA pour l'implémentation de l'interféromètre LBT (2019)
- ERC Consolidator grant (2019)
- Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Seal of Excellence (2017)
- OPTICON-H2020 Joint Research Network grant (2016)
- Max Planck Society grant for independent research (2010)
- Odissea Award of the Belgian Senate for the diploma thesis (2005)
- J. Genard Award of the Astrophysics Department at University of Liege (2005)
- Pisart grant (2005)
