The URochester-led STELLAR project is a finalist in the NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines competition.
A coalition led by the University of Rochester that aims to make the Rochester, New York, and Finger Lakes region a national hub for laser science and development recently hosted the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a site visit as a finalist in the Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) program.
URochester’s STELLAR (Science, Technology and Engineering for Laser and Laser Applications Research) project is one of 15 nationwide finalists—and the only one in New York State—being considered for the second NSF Engines competition. The competition aims to build and scale new innovation clusters that accelerate the development of critical technologies and grow regional economies nationwide.
“There is no better place for a national resurgence in laser technology than the imaging capital of the world, which has a nearly 175-year history of expertise in precision, innovation, and light,” says Thomas Brown, the director of URochester’s Institute of Optics and STELLAR principal investigator. “This region has the pedigree, talent, and brainpower needed to fill national talent shortages, help translate technologies into businesses, bring manufacturing to a scale that can compete with leaders in Europe and China, and fuel core research and development.”
As part of the final rounds of the competition, NSF is conducting in-person interviews and a due-diligence review to evaluate each finalist’s risks, resources, and ability to meet the nation’s evolving needs. The Rochester site visit was the culmination of a planning process that formally began in 2023, when NSF awarded URochester a $1 million Regional Innovation Engines Development Award grant.
The field for this round of competition has narrowed from nearly 300 letters of intent to 15 finalists, and the NSF anticipates announcing the 2026 NSF Engines awards later this year.
The in-person meetings with NSF officials were an opportunity for STELLAR’s organizers to showcase how they would progress the region as a national leader in laser technologies, education, company creation, manufacturing, and workforce development. The project’s key partners include URochester’s Institute of Optics and Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), Monroe Community College (MCC), Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), NextCorps Luminate, Greater Rochester Enterprise (GRE), AmeriCOM, and New York State.
In addition to the STELLAR organizers, the visit brought other critical public, academic, and industry partners from across the region, state, and the country to participate and voice their support for this important initiative. Among the dozens of officials who voiced their support for STELLAR during the site visit were Congressman Joe Morelle, Congressman Nick Langworthy, and Kent Rochford, the CEO and Executive Director of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.
With local businesses, educators, nonprofits, and government entities aligning to support the project, STELLAR’s leadership has secured matching support at the state level if awarded NSF funding.
“New York State is incredibly proud to support this catalytic proposal, including with a $16 million matching commitment,” says Elizabeth Lusskin, the executive vice president for small business and technology development at Empire State Development. “If awarded, STELLAR would provide the connective tissue to knit together investments the state, local partners, and corporations have already made in both the laser sector and the region and bring them to a scale to serve national interests. It would not only benefit the laser industry but many other tech sectors in New York and around the country that rely on lasers, including biotech, defense, and semiconductors.”
Leveraging regional brainpower
Rochester is home to pioneering educational programs—from high school to the doctoral level—focused on the science of light, which could help build the laser workforce. URochester’s nearly 100-year-old Institute of Optics is the nation’s first optics program; RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science became the nation’s first program to offer degrees in the interdisciplinary field of imaging science; and MCC is the nation’s first community college to award associate degrees in optical systems technology.
Alexis Vogt ’01, ’07 (PhD), chair of optical systems technology at MCC, leads the education and workforce development component of STELLAR and says the project would be an opportunity to have these educational programs work collaboratively and expand their impact to reach people across the region.
“One of the biggest gaps in the laser industry today is workforce development,” says Vogt. “Our 11-county region is home to 1.2 million people with tremendous untapped potential. Through the STELLAR initiative, we are expanding access to laser education and training—particularly in rural communities—and creating new pathways into the industry for remote learners, military veterans, the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community, and individuals whose degrees have left them underemployed. By opening these doors, we can build the skilled workforce needed to power the next generation of laser technologies.”
STELLAR would also intensify research in a region that already boasts URochester’s LLE, home to the largest—and some of the most powerful—lasers in academia, as well as facilities like the RIT Semiconductor Nanofabrication Laboratory.
“STELLAR would empower our expert researchers to collaboratively focus on the frontiers of laser development,” says Stefan Preble, RIT’s Bausch and Lomb Professor and PhD program director of microsystems engineering. “There is already brilliant research and development underway locally in ultrafast lasers, microchip-scale lasers, lasers for biotechnology, and quantum networking using lasers. STELLAR would equip us to conduct even more laser research on a grander scale.”
Capitalizing on economic opportunities
STELLAR’s leadership says that the project would position the US to grow its stake in a $16 trillion global marketplace that depends on lasers for everything from precision manufacturing and quantum to energy and defense. They note that more than 150 optics, photonics, imaging, and laser supply-chain companies already operate in the Greater Rochester region.
“We have a unique density and concentration of talent,” says Leah George VanScott, executive vice president of business development and strategy at GRE. “The region also has an unusually mature and collaborative translational ecosystem as well as unparalleled foundational assets—everything from tiny integrated photonic lasers to 50-meter beam lines. Rochester and the Finger Lakes provide one of the strongest starting points in the nation to scale. STELLAR is an opportunity to turn our region’s existing foundation into an engine necessary to secure our nation’s technological future.”
Sujatha Ramanujan, managing director and chief investment officer of NextCorps Luminate, works to help entrepreneurs start or expand businesses related to optics, photonics, and imaging. She sees incredible opportunities for domestic companies to grow their share of the laser marketplace.
“The US only makes about a third of the lasers used in this country, and that number is shrinking,” says Ramanujan. “Applications from defense to medical devices to quantum depend on lasers. We are headed to a serious national problem if we don’t close that gap and start making our own lasers. But between the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, the universities here in Rochester, and the AIM Photonics TAP facility, Rochester already has the infrastructure in place to support the laser industry. STELLAR could propel us into the next generation of science-based business.”
via University of Rochester // Luke Auburn
Photo Credit // J. Adam Fenster