Peter M. Rentzepis

Rentzepis is a native of Kalamata born on 11 December 1934.^[2] Rentzepis attended the 1st Lykion in his hometown and graduated from Denison University and Syracuse University in the United States before pursuing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, graduating in 1963.^[3][4] Rentzepis, who joined Bell Labs in 1963, after two years at General Electric,^[5] led the physical and inorganic chemistry research department at Bell between 1973 and 1985, and taught at the University of California, Irvine from 1974 to 2014,^[3] serving in a presidential chair professorship from 1985.^[4]  In 2014, Rentzepis was appointed TEES Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University.^[3] While at the university, he submitted an application in 1989 and published after patents (US5268862A^[6] & US5325324A^[7] - Three-dimensional optical memory) approval in 1994. The research was conducted under grant No. F30602-97-C-0014 between the United States Air Force (USAF) acting through its Office of Special Research (AFOSR) and The Regents of the University of California.

Rentzepis was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1972,^[8] and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1978.^[9][10] He won the 1982 Peter Debye Award from the American Chemical Society,^[11] followed in 1989 by the Irving Langmuir Award from the American Physical Society,^[12] and in 2001 by the Tolman Award of the ACS Southern California Section.^[4]