Derck received his BA in Physics from Chico State College in 1967 and,
after a hiatus of several years, returned to academia for a PhD in
Astrophysics from CU Boulder. Upon completing a Post-Doc at UW Madison,
he joined Applied Research Corporation as a NASA contractor at Goddard
Space Flight Center, where he split his time between NASA projects and
research. His project work centered on instrument characterization and
calibration and science data pipeline design for several spacecraft,
including COBE, IUE, and FUSE. Before joining SSI, he was an Instrument
Scientist at STScI, involved in the calibration and characterization of
the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on HST.
Over the years, Derck's research has focused on interstellar dust, the
winds of hot stars, binary Cepheids and various calibration issues. He
has been a PI on guest observing programs for NASA missions spanning the
electromagnetic spectrum, including IUE, HST, FUSE, Chandra and Spitzer.
At SSI, his research involves the winds of LMC O stars, the cause of wind
variability in the central stars planetary nebula, the systematics of dust
absorption in the local interstellar medium and the origin of IR excesses
in LMC and SMC O and B stars. He enjoys almost anything with wheels.