Professor Ronald Goldner worked at GTE, General Electric, and General Telephone and continues to consult for companies. Professor Mark Cronin-Golomb was previously employed by Ortel. Part-time instructor Willem Brouwer worked at Baird, Itek, and was president of Diffraction Limited, an optical design company. Professor Robert Gonsalves currently runs his own company. Industrial instructors who come to teach specific courses work at local electro-optics companies, including Litton Itek, Loral, and Rare Earth Medical Lasers.
Alumni working in industry often return as teaching assistants.
The Center uses a team-teaching method to aid this process. The program includes five intensive laboratory courses, covering thin films, Fourier optics, fiber optics, lasers and other sources, and crystalline materials and devices. Each course includes six experiments, in which students follow the processes used by industrial researchers. For example, one experiment in the laboratory course on crystalline optics calls for growing, cleaving, and characterizing a triglycine sulfate crystal before using it to create a pyroelectric detector, and modeling its properties. All lab courses are taught in the evening to make them accessible to guest teachers and part-time students.