Nicholas Gogola, MS
Assistant Core Scientist
Office: Tech, #AG90
847-491-2993
Personal Statement
Nick is a microscopist specializing in the use of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to help solve real-world and research problems with wide-ranging applications.
You don’t really grow up wanting to be a microscopist; it’s something delightful you discover along the way. Nick grew up very interested in math and science, yet not microscopy, and in college, went into physics. He wanted to be an astrophysicist for most of high school and college until he interned at Argonne National Lab doing work with SEMs and discovered he didn’t necessarily want to look up with telescopes, but rather down with microscopes. A love and appreciation for the micro and nano grew through an assortment of microscopy-based research projects in a forensic science graduate program. Loaded with these new microscopy skills, Nick worked for a year in pharmaceutical microscopy before making his way over to the NUANCE Center at Northwestern to focus on the SEM. Nick aims to improve the quality of SEM analysis at NUANCE through training student researchers on SEM operation and sample prep, providing expert technical assistance to external users, and performing outreach activities that introduce the next generation of microscopists to the SEM.
Research Objectives and Approach
- Scanning Electron Microscopy for materials characterization
- Microanalysis
- Forensic microscopy
Educational & Research Background
| 2022-Present | Assistant Core Scientist – Northwestern University, NUANCE/EPIC |
| 2019-2021 | University of New Haven – M.S. in Forensic Science |
| 2015-2018 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – B.S. in Physics |