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Over the past several years there has been a rapid advancement in solid state lighting applications brought on by the
development of high efficiency light emitting diodes. Development of lighting devices, systems and products that meet
the demands of the future lighting marketplace requires workers from many disciplines including engineers, scientists,
designers and architects. The National Science Foundation has recognized this fact and established the Smart Lighting
Engineering Research Center that promotes research leading to smart lighting systems, partners with industry to enhance
innovation and educates a diverse, world-class workforce. The lead institution is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with
core partners Boston University and The University of New Mexico. Outreach partners include Howard University,
Morgan State University, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Because of the multidisciplinary nature of
advanced smart lighting systems workers often have little or no formal education in basic optics, lighting and
illumination. This paper describes the initial stages of the development of self-contained and universally applicable
educational modules that target essential optics topics needed for lighting applications. The modules are intended to be
easily incorporated into new and existing courses by a variety of educators and/or to be used in a series of stand-alone,
asynchronous training exercises by new graduate students. The ultimate goal of this effort is to produce resources such
as video lectures, video presentations of students-teaching-students, classroom activities, assessment tools, student
research projects and laboratories integrated into learning modules. Sample modules and resources will be highlighted.
Other outreach activities such as plans for coursework, undergraduate research, design projects, and high school
enrichment programs will be discussed.
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