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A Photonics Curriculum and Professional Development Project Problem Based Learning (PBL) is an educational method that engages students in inquiry based “real world” problem solving. It has been used extensively in medical education since the early 1970s. While already adopted in other fields including business, law and education, it is only beginning to emerge in engineering and technology education as an alternative to the traditional lecture-based approach. The project’s goal is to create teaching materials using this student-centered problem-solving method in teaching photonics and optics.

We asked our video subjects who they worked for, what they do, how they became interested in photonics and who helped or encouraged them.  We asked our subjects to discuss their educational preparation for their career and why those chose their specific educational and career pathways.  We also encouraged our subjects to discuss what they found interesting about their jobs and to provide advice to students who might be interested in pursuing careers in lasers, optics or photonics.