LAS CRUCES, N.M. – 3 Feb 11
An Intern’s Story: From USRP to NASA Employee
By: Heather L. Ogletree
Charles Nichols is a recent addition to the NASA family and yet another example of an USRP intern moving through the “NASA Pipeline” and entering the STEM workforce. On Jan. 18, 2011, Nichols returned to NASA’s White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) in Las Cruces, N.M. where he will work with his former USRP Mentor Regor Saulsberry as a Flight System’s Test Engineer.
Nichols recalled, “Dr. Jess Waller and Regor Saulsberry were instrumental to my success and did everything in their power to foster my professional growth. Out of my 5 previous internships, NASA at WSTF is by far the finest institution I have ever had the pleasure of working with.” Previously, Nichols interned with the New Mexico Department of Transportation (2007), Chevron Phillips (2008), and NASA’s Career Exploration Program (2009) before accepting his first USRP internship at WSTF in 2009 and then returning for another tour in the summer of 2010. Furthermore, he served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps as and graduated this December with a degree in mechanical engineering from New Mexico State University.
USRP WSTF Coordinator Robert Cort commented, “I've been associated with the USRP program for about 6 years, it has been very gratifying to see the quality of students, the level of excitement, and the quality of work that the students can produce.... It is even more exciting now that one of our previous USRP students has been selected to be hired on as a full time employee at WSTF. I look forward to continued success with the program and the students that are part of the program.”
The interview below contains the story of Nichols’s journey from intern to NASA employee and contains advice for future NASA hopefuls:
How did you go from interning with USRP and Regor Saulsberry to working in the same department?
My NASA career began as a part-time intern in the USRA CEP program at White Sands Test Facility’s Safety and Mission Assurance department under Michael Hallock and Alton Luper. There I was assigned to model the hypothetical time-dependent spread and concentration levels of hazardous chemicals given a release scenario and weather conditions, work on the pressure system database, and provide engineering support for the department. After seven months, I started looking for a position more attuned to my background as a mechanical engineer and applied to a full-time USRP internship during fall 2009. Regor Saulsberry contacted me less than a week afterward and gave me a tour of the area including the Materials and Chemical Labs. I fell in love with the department and decided to join the program that day.
Working as a researcher was a great fit for me since I work well under quality mentoring and relatively little supervision, love investigating physical phenomena with cutting-edge software and equipment, and like reading technical papers and standards. Before I came to work for Regor, I asked him to send me some reading material on his projects — Raman spectroscopy and acoustic emission (AE) NDE techniques. To my surprise, Regor sent me enough ASTM [American Standard of Testing Materials] standards and technical papers to fill a 3-inch binder! I read each paper at least once before I began my internship and took whatever courses on SATERN [NASA Online Training Site] I would need. That really made a difference. Since I was able to instrument tests and collect data on the first day, my final report was much richer and [more] illuminating than it would’ve been otherwise. Starting early gave me more time to focus on my report, which was good because it took nearly two weeks to finalize after I submitted the rough draft.
Regor gave me several choices for projects, and I focused on researching the AE characteristics of carbon-fiber composites approaching failure and developing a mechanism for scanning the exterior surfaces of pressure vessels using laser profilometry and eddy-current NDE. It’s over a year later and a variant of the profilometer I helped design will be installed in WSTF’s Laser Lab sometime within the next month! Our department’s groundbreaking AE research documented a reproducible pattern that is capable of predicting the load at which individual test specimens failed at within 2% of the failure load. The NDE industry typically tests specimens to failure then calculates the mean and distribution of the failure load and sets an operating pressure low enough to ensure that there is less than a one in a million chance of failure.
After supporting other interns in continuing the AE research from campus, I returned for a second USRP internship to supervise a team of interns in refining the test methods and developing software to compute the failure load in real time. After Regor and a few others fought to get me in, my NDE research continues as a NASA employee hired under the Veterans Recruitment Appointment Authority. My career as a U.S. Marine not only paid my way through college, but it also helped me get my foot in the door at NASA.
How has the program influenced your life/career?
My work at White Sands Test Facility was instrumental to receiving later internships and brought about a few interesting job offers prior to my graduation. I was tempted by an offer to design nuclear weapons for the Air Force in Albuquerque, but NASA at WSTF was my first choice in employers. WSTF brings the brightest scientists and engineers in the nation together to work in noble research fields then shares the results of their research in an open forum to committee members and then the world through ASTM and other standards organizations. As a NASA scientist and engineer I consider myself very lucky...to be working for an organization that is fueled by human curiosity and the search for answers to mankind’s enduring questions. Not only has my time at NASA changed my understanding of space, but it has opened my mind to scientific possibilities and engineering opportunities that fill me with wonder.
What words of advice/encouragement do you have for current/future interns who hope to come back and work for NASA?
1. Work in a job that you love and find your niche in the department. After you find out what you’re passionate about, take the initiative and work hard at becoming an expert at what you do. Line up your skills with what your department needs now and maybe they’ll need you in the future.
2. Get a head start. Before you begin your projects, thoroughly research the technical details and understand the nuts and bolts of the project and why NASA needs a solution. Knock out training as soon as possible by coordinating with your center using SATERN.
3. Make friends. Form and maintain long-lasting relationships with the people you work with. You never know when you’ll need a reference…
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As Nichols said, forming relationships is an important part of being an intern. The relationship he formed with his USRP Mentor Regor Saulsberry ended up being the launch pad for his NASA career.
Saulsberry noted, “We try to interview and carefully screen several USRP applicants each time and then down-select to the one best suited. We look for bright students that have the right qualifications, have strong enthusiasm for our projects, and have good recommendations from previous employers. Once on the job, work ethic, a can-do attitude and teamwork are also essential ingredients to succeeding at WSTF. Charles excelled in all of these areas and his work produced significant advancement in technical research. We are excited to have Charles aboard, and look forward to utilizing his skills in tackling challenging technical problems at WSTF.”