Alumni

Institute of Optics alumni include Nobel laureates, members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and founders of many optics, photonics, and imaging companies. Our impact is felt globally and more than half of the optics degrees in the US have been awarded by the Institute of Optics.

The optics community is close-knit and want our alumni to form lifelong bonds with the Institute, the Hajim School, and the University at large. We are proud of the way our alumni both give to and receive value from the Institute well beyond their time as students here. Alumni can receive important networking and professional development through our Industrial Associates program and provide generous support for scholarships, faculty growth, and more.

Contact Alumni Relations

For more information about donating your time or resources to the Hajim School, contact Derek Swanson, Executive Director of Advancement, at (315) 271-9732 or derek.swanson@rochester.edu.

Strickland smiling at the camera in a lab setting.

Nobel Laureate

In 2018, an Institute of Optics alumna became only the third woman to receive the prize in physics, joining Marie Curie (1903) and Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1963). Donna Strickland, who received her doctorate in optics from Rochester in 1989, earned a share of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics today for her work at the University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) developing “chirped-pulse amplification,” or CPA, the basis of her PhD dissertation.

Learn about her innovative research
Jim and Tammy Wyant smiling at the camera.

Wyant Challenge

University of Rochester life trustee James C. Wyant ’67 (MS), ’69 (PhD), ’21 (Honorary) and his wife, Tammy Wyant, established a $12 million professorship challenge to support the Institute of Optics and set the course for its continued growth, groundbreaking research, leadership, and scholarship. The Wyant Optics Challenge Fund is a 10-year initiative that will increase the institute’s faculty by 50 percent and advance its preeminent position in the field of optics.

Join the challenge
Large letters spelling UR2024 with a graduate standing in front of them.

Add to Our Archives

We’re collecting information about our alumni for our archives. We want to know what all our alumni are up to—whether you got a job, got married, or just want to share a fun story about your time here. You don’t have to be famous to become a part of Institute history! Please send us any anecdotes, pictures, and interesting factoids from your time at the institute or in the real world. If you have an object or anything else that you would like to donate to the archives, please let us know.

Email Lori Russell