In Memoriam: Seán (John) Sheridan
SPIE Fellow Seán (John) Sheridan of University College Dublin (UCD) passed away Tuesday 1 November. At UCD, Sheridan served as professor, vice-principal for Research, Innovation, and Impact at the College of Engineering and Architecture, and head of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
Sheridan was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland, where he attended St. Patrick's National School and St. Gerald's College. He received his Bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from University College Galway in 1985, and his Master’s degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech (GT) in 1986. While at GT he worked as a research assistant for William T. Rhodes.
In 1987, he enrolled in Jesus College at the University of Oxford and, in 1991, was awarded his doctorate for work carried out under the supervision of Laszlo Solymar and Colin J. R. Sheppard in the Department of Engineering Science. This was followed by postdoctoral research fellowships, supported first by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and then by a European Community Bursary. Both were held at the Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Optik in Erlangen-Nürnberg University, under the leadership of A. W. Lohmann. In 1994, he took up a position as a visiting scientist at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Italy. In 1997, he was appointed to the School of Physics at the Dublin Institute of Technology as a permanent lecturer. He joined the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at UCD in 2000 as a college lecturer. In 2005, he became a senior lecturer, and, in 2007, professor of optical engineering at the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
“My deepest sympathies to John's family,” says SPIE Fellow Chris Dainty, professor emeritus at the University of Galway. “He left us suddenly, and whilst we are all in shock, he did leave us with so many uplifting and humorous memories. His presence always lifted an event, whether it was a small meeting in the lab or a large conference. He will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him.”
Sheridan was known not only for his dedication to students, but also for his sense of humor. In 2020, Sheridan was scheduled to give a series of in-person lectures at ITMO University but due to Covid19, the lectures took place on Zoom. Noted by the host as "the author of more than 450 Scopus-indexed papers with an h-index of 44,” Sheridan first spoke to ITMO.NEWS on “the future of holography, academic networking, and why he believes it’s better to think it over ten times before becoming a professor.”
A long-time SPIE Member, Sheridan served as chair for several conference program committees at SPIE Photonics Europe and SPIE Optics + Optoelectronics. He gave several popular presentations at SPIE and other conferences, including Holography: 50th anniversary of Dennis Gabor’s Nobel Prize: Part I. A historical perspective and Part II. An engineering perspective at the 2021 Education and Training in Optics and Photonics (ETOP) conference. He was also a member of the National Committee for the International Year of Light (IYL) in Ireland, and participated in the 2015 IYL “Greening of the Spire” celebration.
“I knew Seán through working on international projects related to outreach and education, and I always looked forward to catching up with him at conferences or when visiting Dublin,” says SPIE Fellow John Dudley, professor of physics at the University Bourgogne Franche-Comté. “He was an amazingly insightful scientist, and he was incredibly committed to his students and colleagues. Through his work and his example, he was an inspiration, making friends around the world and influencing a generation of students and colleagues. He will be missed greatly by the optics and photonics community in Ireland and around the world.”
Information on funeral services and donations to the UCD College of Engineering and Architecture Student Support Fund can be found here.
