VCU news

By Amelia Heymann

Nick Driver came to VCU in 2011 as a freshman majoring in music, but then he was star-struck. An astronomy class taught by Bob Gowdy changed Driver’s life, not just his major.

Now a dozen years later, Driver is graduating with his third degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, a doctorate in nanoscience in the Department of Physics that builds on his master’s (for which Gowdy was his program advisor) and his undergraduate degree.

It also builds on a fascination dating to his childhood. Driver recalls staying up until 4 a.m. with his mother, gazing at meteor showers and other astronomical wonders through their telescope.

“I loved that stuff for a long time, but never thought I was going to do it professionally and physics,” he said.

NASA has been an ongoing beneficiary of Driver’s talent, which he attributes to VCU’s hands-on teaching and experimentally focused approach in the nano program. But beyond the specialized scientific and engineering knowledge he has gained at VCU, communication skills have been a major part of his education.

“I could say a whole bunch of, like, specific fancy science stuff, but it’s better to just be able to talk to people,” he said.  

During his time in the graduate program, Driver has had three internships at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – first an in-person internship, followed by two remote internships. Now he is working part time with a group creating nanosensor platforms and quantum dot spectrometers.

Driver’s NASA experience stems from a partnership program among universities and the space agency called the Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science & Technology II. CRESSTII brings students from universities across the Southeast to collaborate on research and instrument development at Goddard.

“For all his hard work, he has not only successfully completed his thesis work, but also worked with us on the side while doing classes or taking on other responsibilities,” said Mahmooda Sultana, Ph.D., an instrument scientist in the Planetary Environments Lab at Goddard and the principal investigator of the two projects.

Sultana has worked with Driver since his first summer internship, where he made a strong impression. She was excited he wanted to continue working with her team part time.

Currently, Driver is helping develop remote sensing technology. One of the two projects he worked on as an intern with Sultana is a multifunctional nanosensor platform, which consists of multiple sensors on a small chip. Driver said the platform is a way to sense gases, temperature, pressure and other conditions in space environments such as on the International Space Station or on the moon. Nanotechnology is at the heart of these miniaturized in situ chemical analysis instruments.

Driver has been helping the team with data analytics to help improve their data analysis algorithm. Sultana, who is team leader and principal investigator for the projects Driver is supporting, said some of the data analysis algorithms used to take a long time due to a large data set, but Driver has improved the protocol for analysis and shortened the processing time.

“He is able to bring in some of his expertise that he has developed in grad school and contribute to both of my projects,” Sultana said.

Driver’s team has also been working on quantum dot spectrometers, which are nanometer-sized crystals of semiconductors that selectively absorb and emit light. These are often used in TVs and traffic lights, and NASA is developing a special type of spectrometer to investigate the atmosphere of other planetary bodies.

Driver hopes a full-time opportunity at NASA will develop after graduation. And while his current team is small, he loves working in such an intimate group and developing strong friendships.

“It’s rare to end up working with people that are close-knit like that, because in science, especially NASA, you think about those flagship missions. There could be hundreds of people working to send a rocket up,” Driver said. “But we get to be kind of these small groups of people just working on one thing every day.”