Earlier this year, at a significant recruitment event at the University of Arizona’s Wyant College of Optical Sciences (OSC), the job openings listed outnumbered the students in attendance. This imbalance exemplifies the immense pressure STEM programs nationwide face in meeting the photonics industry’s workforce demands.
Laser Fun Day and Expect Academic Success in STEM (EASIS) Optical Engineering Summer Camp activities at the Wyant College of Optical Sciences. Courtesy of University of Arizona.
“Employers have a seemingly endless demand for STEM graduates across the B.S./M.S./Ph.D. level,” said Justin Walker, OSC’s associate dean for business development and administration.
Technology companies and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) are competing for graduates in optical sciences, Walker said, and demand from the tech sector in northern California and Washington state has been accelerating rapidly because of developments in imaging, cloud-based architectures, and AR/VR technology.
Two-thirds of the 101 optics and optical sciences degrees that OSC awarded in 2020 were at the graduate level, with 43 master’s and 23 doctorates, according to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). And even as the U.S. industry wrestles with the challenges of hiring highly skilled professionals, it faces an even larger deficit of middle- and lower-skilled photonics specialists.