Head and shoulders image of Dr. Dennis Skopik, director, Saskatchewan Accelerator Laboratory.

Bio/Historical Note: Image appeared in fall 1998 issue of The Green and White.

Bio/Historical Note: Dr. Dennis M. Skopik earned his BSc (Physics and Mathematics) at Defiance College (Ohio), an MSc from the College of William and Mary, and his PhD in Nuclear Physics from the American University. Dr. Skopik came to the University of Saskatchewan in 1970 to work with Dr. Leon Katz at the Saskatchewan Accelerator Laboratory. He was appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and promoted through the professorial ranks to become a full professor in 1979 when only 37 years old. Dr. Skopik later became director of the Saskatchewan Accelerator Laboratory (SAL) and served in that capacity until 1999. Through Dr. Skopik's leadership, staff at the Saskatchewan Accelerator Laboratory provided the initial design for a Canadian synchrotron facility. Based on this design the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) conducted a national competition to determine the optimal site for such a facility. He then directed the U of S team that prepared an application. Throughout this competition, and subsequent to the award of the synchrotron project to the U of S, Dr. Skopik provided the leadership which resulted in the recruitment of federal, provincial, municipal and private sector funding in a partnership hitherto unknown in the scientific world and culminating in a decision by provincial and federal authorities to proceed with constructing the Canadian Light Source. Dr. Skopik has served as a member of numerous committees, societies and boards, including: chair, Division of Nuclear Physics, Canadian Association of Physicists; Executive Committee Member, Canadian Institute for Nuclear Physics; member of the Program Advisory Committee for MIT's Bates Linear Accelerator Center; and member of the Nuclear Physics Review Panel for the Department of Energy, Washington, D.C. He was awarded an honourary Doctor of Science degree by the U of S in 2010. Dr. Skopik is the Deputy Associate Director for the Physics Division at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator facility in Newport News, Virginia (2010).