Nicholas (Nick) D’Antona ’19 and Peter Orban ’20 were recently awarded fellowships from the National Institutes of Standards & Technology (NIST) Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). NIST is one of the nation’s premiere research institutions for the physical and engineering sciences. The two SMCM students will work at labs in Gaithersburg, MD during the summer of 2019.

Peter Orban ’20
This will be the second consecutive NIST SURF fellowship for Peter, who will work in the Physical Measurement Laboratory in the Fluid Metrology Group. Peter is majoring in both mathematics and physics, with a materials science minor. After graduating from SMCM he plans to go into a PhD program in applied physics. Peter’s project title is: “Improving Stack Flow Measurements by making them faster and more accurate”.

Nicholas D’Antona ’19 (right) examines spin-coated thin film solar cells with Dr. Troy Townsend
Nick will work with Dr. Lee Richter in the Materials Measurement Lab on a project titled: “Wide bandgap metal oxide films as electron transport layers in scalably-printed quantum dot solar cells”. Nick is pursuing a double major in physics and chemistry and plans to attend graduate school to study chemistry or materials science in pursuit of a PhD after graduating from SMCM.