In this installment of Senior Member Insights, OPN talks with Nicolaie Pavel, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Laser, Plasma, and Radiation Physics, Magurele, Romania, since 1990. Pavel graduated in July 1990 from the Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest, Romania. In 1997, he received a Ph.D. in optics, spectroscopy and lasers from the Institute of Atomic Physics, Bucharest; he habilitated in 2013.