Meaningful connections with faculty and industry experts helped the Rochester graduate find her niche in the field of optics.
Sarah Bjornland ’17 fell in love with the field of optics in high school when her physics class did a special unit on the topic. She gravitated to the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics because of its rich history as the nation’s first optics program, but she was initially unsure what her career would hold and whether she should pursue work in research or industry.
Through the institute’s tight-knit community and connections with industrial partners, Bjornland connected with mentors who helped her find a path. She recalls a particularly enlightening conversation with optics professor James Zavislan where she expressed doubt in her math skills, but he encouraged her to embrace her strengths.
“He told me that I have skills that can’t be put on a résumé,” recalls Bjornland. “What he meant by that was it’s okay that I’m not necessarily the best math student, that I’m not getting A’s in these very difficult classes because I have this other sort of skillset. And he really encouraged me to lean into that more. That was the first time I heard it was okay to be an engineer but also to have these other interests and this other career path to lean into.”
Bjornland’s strong interpersonal skills, meticulous attention to detail, and her technical background helped her secure an electro-optics internship with Elbit Systems of America through the institute’s Industrial Associates (IA) Program, which connects students and faculty with industry, academia, and government agencies. The experience served her well, and the IA Program helped her find full-time employment with Optikos Corporation as an optical metrology engineer.
“I got offered a job while I was still here on campus, and so before graduating, I already knew that I was going to go move out to Boston,” says Bjornland. “It turned out to be a great decision because while I was working, I got exposed to a different side of optics. I got to see the business side of optics, which led me to pursue my MBA online.”
She returned to Rochester in 2020 to work at Rochester Precision Optics as a manufacturing engineer, then moved to an assembly manager role in 2023 after completing her MBA.
“I’m responsible for making sure that we’re meeting schedule and meeting budget, and our technical problems are taken care of by an engineer,” she explains. “But I’m not necessarily doing that day-to-day engineering myself anymore. So, I was able to get my optics degree, understand the technical problems, and work in that for a while. Now I have this unique experience where, as a manager, I get to see what’s going on and help drive that, while not necessarily doing all of the work myself.
Bjornland now gets to impart the lessons she learned from Rochester faculty on a new generation of students, teaching classes at Monroe Community College’s optics systems technology program, chaired by fellow Institute of Optics alumna Alexis Vogt ’01, ’07 PhD.
