Dr. D. Barry Coyle grew up in the Charleston SC region and received his BS in Physics at the College of Charleston in 1986. (Go Cougars) He minored in Astronomy under Dr Robert Dukes, and got his first hands-on experience with laser operation and applications under Dr. J.Fred Watts doing Photo-Acoustic RAMAN Spectroscopy. Through this early exposure, he was able to convince the Physics Dept at the American University in Washington DC to admit an average student from a liberal arts college into their graduate program. While at A.U., he performed his PhD work at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in their Lasers and Electro-Optics Group in Greenbelt, MD, where he still works today. Barry's attention wanders to and from assorted new photonic technologies and applies them to Earth Science instruments and Planetary exploration whenever possible. Dr. R. Kay, Dr. J. Degnan, and especially Dr. Jack Burton, gave him amazing opportunities at NASA where he is still working in his dream occupation.