Mike Pomerantz joins the AmeriCOM team as Director of Engineering and Manufacturing at our Fabrication Laboratory, or COM-Lab. Mike will lead the team that works with clients to help develop manufacturing solutions for industry and academic research using a wide variety of manufacturing and metrology tools.

Mike has 20 years of experience at Optimax Systems, Inc., where he held a variety of manufacturing and metrology roles as well as providing project planning, process development, and team leadership. He also spent 10 years in academia, as both researcher and educator, at the University of Rochester, where he  worked with graduate and undergraduate students at the Institute of Optics in the Center for Freeform Optics and Mechanical Engineering departments. Mike also serves as faculty at Monroe Community College, managing the manufacturing and metrology labs for the Optical Systems Technology program.

Born and raised in the Rochester area, Mike has a background in Mechanical Engineering. He is passionate about manufacturing and developing solutions that will advance manufacturing and metrology for the optics industry into the future.

Alexis Vogt, PhD serves as executive director of workforce and higher education at AmeriCOM. Dr. Vogt is also a tenured professor of optics and the endowed chair of the Optical Systems Technology program at Monroe Community College (MCC), the first college worldwide to award associate degrees in precision optics. In her first five years at MCC, Dr. Vogt secured over $6 million for the program.

Under her leadership, program enrollment and completion rates increased exponentially and laboratory renovations yielded 7,500 square feet of teaching space in four optic labs making use of $3.5 million of state-of-the-art optics manufacturing and metrology equipment. In her position at AmeriCOM, Dr. Vogt will expand her successful work at MCC to AmeriCOM partner colleges, faculty, students, and employers across the nation.

Prior to joining MCC, Dr. Vogt worked in the optics industry as Applications & Business Development Manager at Melles Griot (IDEX) and previous to that, designed contact lenses and intraocular lenses for Bausch + Lomb. In addition to her industry experience, Dr. Vogt holds three patents and has authored hundreds of papers, presentations, and publications in the field, including the definitions of “light” and “polarization” for World Book Encyclopedia. Dr. Vogt received her B.S. as well as her Ph.D. in Optics from the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester where her research focused on polarization engineering, coherence theory, and microscopy.

Dr. Vogt is an active member of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics and a senior member of Optica, formerly OSA, the Optical Society of America. She serves as a board member for the American Precision Optics Manufacturers Association (APOMA), the Rochester Museum & Science Center, the New York Photonics/Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster (RRPC), and the MCC Optical Systems Technology Advisory Board. In addition, she serves on the University of Rochester Hajim School of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council, the University of Rochester Institute of Optics Industrial Associates Director’s Advisory Council, and as the MCC Optics Club advisor.

Dr. Vogt is the recipient of the 2021 RRPC Leadership Award, the 2020 IEEE Technical Skills Educator Award, the 2018 National Women’s Hall of Fame Keeper of the Flame Award, and the 2017 New York Photonics Education Award. Her professional efforts have also been recognized with the Rochester Business Journal 2016 “Forty Under 40” award, the 2015 IDEX KEEP award for high performance, and the 2012 Bausch + Lomb CEO Award. With a commitment to the future of OPI industries, Dr. Vogt dedicates time to youth outreach and has been involved with coordinating and presenting optics demonstrations to children and educators both within the Rochester community and internationally. She is respected nationally as a speaker and role model for young women in optics.