Las Cruces, NM --13 NOV 09
New Mexico State University Student Works with NASA Hands-On USRP internship
New Mexico resident Charles Nichols is a fall 2009 intern at NASA White Sands Test Facility with the NASA Undergraduate Student Research Program (USRP). Nichols is working in the Materials Testing Group during his 15 week internship near Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Nichols works with his NASA mentor Regor Saulsberry on the Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV) in the Materials Testing Group. He works with materials scientists and engineers and other federal and corporate laboratories investigating the stress behavior of composite materials.
Nichols is working on creating a test method that will allow better tracking of damage accumulation in carbon-fiber materials below the visual threshold for damage, thus helping NASA scientists and engineers to better predict the service lifetime of components using these materials.
“The people at WSTF really enjoy their work and the people they work with—which is very contagious and hard to find in today’s workplace,” comments Nichols about his experience with NASA.
Nichols is a senior at New Mexico State University from Carlsbad, NM. He expects to graduate with a mechanical engineering degree in December, 2010. Nichols is in the top tenth percentile of the Engineering College at NMSU.
“I chose my career path after seeing how successful my uncles, who are both Mechanical Engineers, have been in their careers, and because of my passion for mechanics and projectile dynamics,” adds Nichols.
NASA USRP has placed 23 mechanical engineering majors for the fall 2009 internship session on-site at NASA centers across the U.S.
Source: Anthony Zippay of the Universities Space Research Association
