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Brandon Cochenour ’03 will present his lecture “When Light Gets Wet” noon-1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2 in the Acopian Engineering Center room 200. Internship and externship opportunities with the Naval Air Warfare Center also will be discussed.
Cochenour currently works for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) under the Department of the Navy. NAVAIR performs the research, development, testing and evaluation of anything the Navy sends into the air.
“I work for a group that focuses mainly on the research and development side,” he says. “We are creating technologies that aren’t yet in the fleet but are considered ‘next generation’ systems.”
His lecture will focus on systems that fuse optical technologies, lasers, with microwave technologies, radar. The hybrid laser-radar systems being developed by Cochenour and his department are being investigated for applications where traditional radio frequency systems can’t be used, such as underwater.
By joining microwaves with optics, they can extend detection, imaging, and communication capabilities to underwater platforms. According to Cochenour, this is of scientific, commercial, and military interest, as there are above water applications as well as a number of interesting biomedical applications.
Cochenour believes his time at Lafayette aided him in his career.
“Over the past few years, I’ve come to realize the benefits of the electrical and computer engineering program at Lafayette. When you work in a challenging area like research and development, creating new technologies, it requires you to have a firm understanding of the fundamentals of all aspects of electrical and computer engineering,” he says. “The courses at Lafayette provided a solid background in all these areas, but most importantly, they gave me an appreciation of the fact that learning didn’t stop when I left campus. Knowing how to take new or unfamiliar concepts and apply them to what I already know has, without a doubt, kept me afloat here [at NAVAIR].”
He also stresses the importance of staying involved with the College.
“Whether it be volunteering as an alumni admissions representative, sponsoring an externship or internship, or coming to give a talk, it’s very important to me to give back,” Cochenour says.
After graduating with a B.S. electrical and computer engineering, Cochenour went on to graduate from Johns Hopkins University with an M.S. in electrical and computer engineering.
Cochenour’s lecture is sponsored by the electrical and computer engineering department.