Schumer: Feds pick Rochester for big photonics center senator calls ‘game

She says a decision on where some $110 million dollars in federal funding is headed is imminent.

Photonics is the innovative use of light in a variety of ways, such as sending information with optic cables, laser lights, flat-screen TVs, and in measuring tools.

Photonics has a place in Rochester history as companies like Kodak and Xerox were started there.

“Nobody on the face of the Earth knows photonics and photography and everything else in that ilk like people from Rochester”, Slaughter said during the news conference at the Greater Rochester worldwide Airport.

The Research Foundation for the State University of New York, along with the SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, served as the lead agency in the consortium that applied for a multi-state Integrated Photonics Institute for Manufacturing Innovation to be headquartered in New York.

However, officials at SUNY Poly in Albany would not immediately confirm the award.

Charles Schumer says the Department of Defense has picked Rochester as the location for a sought-after manufacturing institute focused on the field of photonics.

An announcement from the federal government that could have a major economic impact on the Rochester region could come as soon as this weekend.

“This announcement is a job creating game-changer for Rochester and firmly puts the region on the map as one of the global leaders in photonics and manufacturing”.

The three finalists were announced in January: the Rochester-based, New York-led coalition and groups in California and Florida.