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New Mexico Alliance of Optics & Photonics Education
New Mexico Alliance for Optics & Photonics

Mission: A growing Alliance that links workforce development with economic development

New Mexico and Albuquerque have a "unique" national position in the field of optics: few places in the country offer the combination of history, resources, education, and careers that exist in New Mexico.

For many years New Mexico's economy has been highly interlinked with technology as a result of our national labs, defense facilities, and their supportive industrial base.

The Alliance's mission is to prepare and train the next generation of optics and photonics technicians. We hope to generate a pipeline of qualified candidates to meet the growing needs of the growing optics and photonics industries in our state.
– Art Guenther, Research Professor, UNM (CHTM)

New Mexico has a great need for photonics technicians in an array of budding optics companies, aligned industries, and the national labs. New Mexico's optics community has developed an education/ career ladder to train students for work in the optical engineering and photonics industry.

A comprehensive curriculum, encompassing middle school through graduate study, is in place to attract young people to the field and insure a qualified workforce for years to come.

  • New Mexico is the only state to offer such an articulated program.
  • The New Mexico photonics education ladder creates cross trained workforce in optics, photonics , and micro electronics.
  • The ladder offers a pipeline of trained technicians and technologists to the industry.

At UNM's Center for High Technology Materials, research in Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) utilizes UNM Optical Science graduates.

Laser safety instruction at the high-school level gives students valuable skills to use later when entering the workforce.