In academic year 2019-2020, master thesis student David De Vocht (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) developed a novel model for laser pulse amplification in semiconductor optical amplifiers under the supervision of prof. Nathalie Vermeulen, titular of the course on Lasers in the master programme. The developed model is an ‘inverse’ amplifier model in the sense that it starts from a targeted output signal and then calculates what the input laser pulse should look like to obtain that output. As this was one of the first ‘inverse’ amplifier models ever developed, David and his supervisor decided to prepare a journal paper about this work and submitted it to the renowned journal of Optics Letters. Their manuscript was accepted for publication in January 2021. Both David and his supervisor prof. Vermeulen are very happy that this master thesis work, carried out during a challenging period of Covid-related lockdown, has given rise to this high-quality scientific outcome.