about

whoami

Hello, I’m Nathan—an aerospace engineering PhD student at Texas A&M University. My graduate research involves the application of laser diagnostics to high-enthalpy hypersonic environments, but I maintain an interest in various fields to avoid pigeonholing myself too much.

Professional

Fission research is pretty exciting these days, and I’ve always had a soft spot for nuclear power, so the renewed development of molten salt and small-scale reactors is nice to see. I’m also rather optimistic about the future of fusion, especially with all the private capital that seems to be entering the market now, and I hope we’ll actually have a reactor on the grid in 20 years. High-speed propulsion (ram/scramjets, RDEs, etc.) is another neat field, and I’d like to learn more about the state of the art when I have time to do so.

Personal

If it wasn’t already obvious from the content of this website, two of my interests include tinkering with Linux and typesetting various things in $\LaTeX$. A longer-term hobby involves attempting to teach myself the concepts underpinning graduate-level physics (e.g., tensor calculus, differential geometry, geometric algebra, group theory, gauge theory, etc.), which at least maintains a marginal overlap with my professional aspirations. Looking back, I should have worked towards a BS in physics rather than engineering, but that ship has sailed. More recently, I’ve been delving a little into linguistics and language more generally; studying Latin, ancient Greek, and Russian are on the docket at some point. Calisthenics and running are my exercises of choice to ward off my predisposition for a completely sedentary lifestyle. Other things I enjoy include playing guitar, browsing Wikipedia, and using Google Earth to explore areas I think are worth visiting. Despite my slightly ostentatious showcase of all the books in my personal library, I read far less than I should.