Richard Chevious is a rising senior at Louisiana Tech University (Ruston, LA) with a double major in Physics and Psychology.  There he is a full time undergraduate researcher during the regular academic year under Dr. Tabbetha Dobbins in the field of nanotechology at Louisiana Tech University, Institute for Micromanufacturing (IfM) (Ruston, LA).  He has performed research at the IfM on topics related to synthesis, processing, and characterization of complex metal hydride powders and nanocomposite electrode construction for fuel cell applications.   He presented at the Louisiana Materials and Emerging Technologies Conference – Katrina:  Challenges and Opportunities on December 12, 2005 with a poster entry titled “Aqueous Suspension of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWNTs) Using Polystyrene Sulfonate Surfactant”.  He also presented at the university-wide 2006 Sixth Annual Undergraduate/Graduate Research Symposium where he presented a poster titled "Layer-by-Layer Films Comprised with Embedded Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes".  In that presentation, he won an outstanding research award.  He has two major goals, which are to get my Ph. D in Astrophysics and become a researcher at NASA or Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Employment History

Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices at Louisiana State University (May – August 2006)
Responsibilities: To research atomic ordering of materials using a synchrotron x-ray source, this allowed for calculations of atomic spacing.

Institute for Micromanufacturing at Louisiana Tech University (September 2005 – present)
Responsibilities: To research layer by layer nanoassembly on silicon wafers with carbon nanotubes embed into the thin films.

 Institute for Micromanufacturing at Louisiana Tech University (June – August 2005)
Responsibilities: To research three aqueous suspensions of three different types of carbon nanotubes to quantity the suspension times.

Expertise and Experience

Software/Hardware Experience: Through my research experiences, I have gained some specialized skills.  I have computer experience in Microsoft Office suite of software for reporting in scientific presentations and analyzing scientific data.  Currently I am learning how to program in Mathlab, Labview, C++ and Java.  I began learning Mathlab first to understand the logic of programming and I am now applying that to C++ and Java programming.  During the course of my research, I have also used the scanning electron microscope (with a technical operator), transmission electron microscope (with a technical operator), and the UV-Visible spectrophotometer.