Buscaino (center left) and the Stanford Optical Society’s 2019–2020 executive team. [Courtesty of SOS]
Brandon Buscaino is a research scientist at Ciena, USA, where his work focuses on advanced optical communications technologies and applications. In 2021, Buscaino was awarded the Kaminow Outstanding Early-Career Professional Prize from Optica. He then became an Optica Ambassador in 2022, an experience that he describes as a turning point in his post-graduate professional life. In a conversation with OPN, Buscaino discusses the importance of finding community by getting involved with organizations as a student and beyond—and the joy he finds in giving back to such communities now that he is established in his career.