Hello, I'm Robert Niffenegger I grew up in Sheboygan County Wisconsin and went to school in Random Lake, WI. I was in 4-H, theatre, lots of sports and was ready for college in 8th grade. After high school I worked as a programmer for Kees Inc and learned the hard way I didn't want to work with just computers all my life. So I went to Michigan Technological University for Physics. I got an internship with NASA right after my first year and built a radio telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center.  I went back to NASA after my second year and programmed a model of Saturn's moons during eclipses.   This past summer I worked at the NASA Ames research center in Mountain View, CA for the Kepler Mission studying binary stars. I got to meet lots of awesome interns, some from Google as well as Facebook. This summer is when I went to Lake Tahoe and took the picture above while hiking near Emerald Bay. After I graduate, I plan on going to Purdue to pursue a PhD in Physics. Right now, I'm interning at NASA Ames again and getting ready to start my PhD at Purdue. In my spare time I love playing guitar and singing.  I'm into alternative indie/rock stuff and anything by Death Cab for Cutie.  I'm a political junkie and hate socialists... sorry I really do.  I also enjoy windsurfing, skiing, snowboarding, and of course anything science related.

I never missed sixth grade. Skipping it felt like skipping a lap in a sprint to the finish, faster the better.  Only now do I realize education is more of a marathon. The winners will ultimately be the ones who can continue learning the longest.  They will adapt and they will create.  I am ready for the next leg of the race. That is why I am very excited to pursue a PhD in Physics with the intention of becoming a Physics Professor.

As a very active and curious child, I loved to question and never let adults get away with a simple, "Because I said so." My interest in physics began in middle school when I read "Black Holes and Time Warps" by Stephen Hawking. I was fascinated by theories that seemed like science fiction yet were a part of a science that I had only begun to discover. It clicked that I was meant to be a Physicist when I gave a speech to an English class on how to use worm holes to create a time machine using special relativity. I made chalk drawings of warped space-time on the board and even wrote out relativistic equations. In high school I was lucky to have an excellent physics teacher and mentor to teach me the fundamentals. I even took AP Physics online by myself, since my school didn't offer it, and scored 4 on the exam.

Continuing my education in Physics at Michigan Technological University was an easy choice. I received plenty of attention from faculty and a rigorous undergraduate education.  Many of the faculty have a unique passion in their teaching. Once a student raised their hand to ask a question but Dr. Bob Weidman exclaimed, "One moment, I'm on a roll!" as he finished explaining an example. Their excitement is an infectious feeling; it has inspired me to become a professor myself.

I was also able to pursue many leadership opportunities at Michigan Tech. I led a committee that broke three world records in one day; setting records for the World's Largest Snowball, World's Largest Snowball Fight and World's most simultaneous snow angels. My interest in politics led me to run a "Rock the Vote '06"campaign which won Michigan Tech Program of the year and to serve as the Undergraduate Student Government President. As president, I represent all students to the Administration and lead initiatives to solve student issues. I am also a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity.  In my spare time I have been able to pursue some arts as well. I play acoustic guitar and often perform at local open mics and the Art Department lets me use their pottery wheel whenever I like. All of these extracurricular activities have given me experience working with people and successfully managing complex projects. I believe it has given me a creative edge to solving problems that only comes from diverse experiences. 

After my first year at Michigan Tech, I accepted an internship at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center with Dr. Bob MacDowall. I did research on a low frequency radio telescope to be deployed on the moon.  It was a great experience for me, not just doing research with NASA but traveling around the east coast and living in our nation's capital.

After my sophomore year, I returned to Goddard and worked with Dr. John Pearl on the Cassini Mission's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument. I created a model in Interactive Data Language (IDL) of Saturn's moons during eclipses to study their surface's thermal inertia. Data is still being taken by CIRS and analyzed by my model.

NASA Ames Research Center offered me an internship last summer, working with Dr. Natalie Batalha of the Kepler Mission and Vulcan Telescope.  I modeled binary star systems looking at how Kepler could enhance false positive detection, while searching for exoplanets. I am still in contact with my mentor working on a paper to be published on one of the binary stars modeled which had a rare M Dwarf secondary. I also helped prepare a binary star catalog of over 300 discoveries from Vulcan which included calculating ephemeri with MatLab.  Aside from research, I got to live on the other coast and go on trips with other interns all over California, from Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe.

Currently I'm working on my Senior Research with Dr. Yoke Khin Yap.  I have helped with two projects in the lab, one to improve the dispersion of nanotubes on substrates using surfactants and another writing C++ code to dynamically change the current across single multiwalled nanotubes in hopes of removing one wall at a time with the current.  

Next semester I will be the teaching assistant for our junior level physics majors only Modern Physics lab. I was offered the job after performing very well the previous year in the course. The instructor, Dr. Jacek Borysow, proudly proclaims that the hyperfine spectrum of Rubidium 87 I took was "Better 'zhan mine!" All of the students love his eccentric personality.

My research experiences have been my driving motivation to pursue Physics. I often lose track of time working on a problem, reading papers, writing code and running tests. Besides research I want to work with people and being a professor will allow me to teach, mentor students as well. My main interests right now are quantum computing (qubit development via SQUIDS, neutral atoms or quantum dots) and nanotechnology.  I think they are exciting fields that can have a dramatic impact on our future. Like the solid state transistor before they could usher in a new chapter of the Information Age.  I want to be part of the revolution.