Stonehill is one of the few colleges in the U.S. to offer an undergraduate Photonics major. The degree positions students for success in areas that include physics, electrical engineering, biomedical optics and medicine.
Photonics is the science and technology of light-based devices (lasers, optical sensors, optical communication systems, etc.) and light-based methods for measurement and sensing. The bachelor of arts major and minor in Photonics are intended primarily for students interested in science and engineering at the heart of photonics.
The field of photonics is rapidly expanding, with applications ranging from applied fields like telecommunication, autonomous driving vehicles, cloud computing, big data, smart mobile, Internet of Things devices, chemical and biological sensing, manufacturing, medical diagnostics and cryptography to purely scientific advances in chemistry, biology and physics.
Students completing the Photonics program at Stonehill will also be well-positioned to enter graduate school in a number of areas, including physics, electrical engineering, biomedical optics and medicine. They also have the opportunity to take advantage of Stonehill's cooperative agreement with the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, in which Stonehill students who satisfy certain criteria receive automatic acceptance to Rochester's Optics Master’s Degree Program.
Using light to manipulate information, integrated photonics will revolutionize data storage and transfer—similar to how integrated circuits ushered us into the Internet age.
The Stonehill Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) is an opportunity for students who have completed their first year at Stonehill to perform full-time, high-quality research over the summer months under the guidance of an expert faculty researcher. A student in the SURE program spends 8-10 weeks of the summer collaborating with a professor - and sometimes other students - on an original research project that fits into the faculty member’s overall research program.
The experience includes postgraduate career seminars, program-wide outings, weekly lunches, and a student poster session in the fall. SURE students generally live on campus and receive a stipend for their summer work.
The Stonehill Career Development Center offers extensive assistance to students in academic degree and career decisions; applying to graduate school; and finding internships, mentors and postgraduate service opportunities.
