A fourth-year undergraduate student sits in a classroom on the first floor of the Mechanical Engineering building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, laptop open, chatting with an online master’s degree student and a working engineer. The three are discussing which components of a laser-cutting setup at a manufacturing plant could be responsible for the system overheating.
That’s the kind of scenario that regularly played out during the fall 2025 semester in a new course on laser-based manufacturing in the UW-Madison Department of Mechanical Engineering. To Professor Frank Pfefferkorn’s knowledge, it’s the first course in the College of Engineering to bridge in-person undergraduate and graduate students, online degree program students, and online professional development participants.
Pfefferkorn and co-instructor Kevin Klingbeil also believe the course’s breadth—spanning both the fundamental physics undergirding laser processes and all the components that must work together in tangible manufacturing applications—sets it apart.
“We wanted a course that lets somebody hit the ground running, to at least know what they don’t know,” says Pfefferkorn, who studies manufacturing processes—including laser-based—for metal parts. “They can be put on the task of working with a laser system for manufacturing and at least know the right questions to ask. It doesn’t mean they can just run it off the bat, but they really understand the space enough to figure out how.”
The course, which was classroom-based but featured Zoom discussion groups, emerged from Pfefferkorn’s two-decadeslong collaboration with Klingbeil (BS ’95, physics) on laser polishing and other techniques. Klingbeil has spent more than 25 years working in the laser-based manufacturing space, running his own consulting firm in Osceola, Wisconsin, since 2019.
Lasers have been deployed in manufacturing processes since the 1970s and have continued to grow in use in industries such as automotive lines, aerospace and flexible packaging. They offer a fast, efficient and precise alternative for tasks like welding, cutting, heat treating and peening.
Pfefferkorn and Klingbeil set out to create a course that covered both physics principles and real setups found on factory floors. Enter Klingbeil, who worked at laser technology companies in Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin before striking out on his own. That experience provided ample fodder for the weekly case studies students worked on in groups, exploring possible solutions from their varied perspectives.
“That was my favorite part of the class, just because it’s rare to hear what other classmates think and how they would approach problems,” says Kirstin Poppen, a student from Verona, Wisconsin, in the mechanical engineering accelerated master’s degree program. “There’s often more than one way to construct a laser system and different parameters and different ways to tackle a problem in manufacturing.”
Thomas Mitchell (BSME ’25), another accelerated master’s student from Skokie, Illinois, had seen laser systems on manufacturing lines at internships and co-op experiences during his time as an undergraduate.
“I wanted to learn more about how they work,” says Mitchell, who will join aerospace components manufacturer Woodward after finishing up his graduate degree in May 2026.
Pfefferkorn, who’s also the academic director of the online master’s degree program in manufacturing systems engineering at UW-Madison, and Klingbeil hope to make the course an annual offering after a successful pilot run.
“Our goal is to make the class the world’s premier course on laser-based manufacturing,” says Klingbeil. “We want it to be the course that if you want to learn about laser-based manufacturing, this is the course that you need.”
Top photo by Joel Hallberg