D. Lopez
Penn State University,
United States
Keywords: workforce development, electronics, photonics
Summary:
The United States is at a pivotal point, simultaneously revitalizing its domestic manufacturing capacities across three transformative industries: semiconductors, photonics, and power electronics. This is not an isolated effort; it is a convergence. These fields are the core pillars of an upcoming industrial revolution, collectively fueling everything from artificial intelligence, computing, communications, and quantum sensing. However, this manufacturing renaissance faces a singular, shared bottleneck: a critical workforce and skills gap. Technology is advancing faster than our traditional talent pipelines can adapt. The demand for an agile, interdisciplinary workforce—one that understands how electronics, light, and power intersect—is outpacing the supply of qualified technicians, engineers, and researchers. This keynote addresses this grand challenge as a grand opportunity. Targeting students and educators from community colleges to graduate programs, this presentation explores the new and abundant career pathways emerging at the intersection of these critical industries. We need to go beyond identifying the problem to develop a collaborative plan for solutions, focusing on innovative educational models and interdisciplinary skills required to create an agile, diverse, and future-ready workforce that will maintain America's leadership in emerging technologies.