In a LinkedIn post published Friday, the Chicago-based company said Nichols brings over two decades of experience supporting major satellite development efforts for NASA and the Department of Defense to his position.
Nichols most recently served as a principal staff member and a subject matter expert at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
He served as a lead engineer supporting several NASA missions, including the James Webb Space Telescope, Parker Solar Probe, Europa Clipper and Van Allen Probes.
Nichols “is a first principles thinker with expertise in the qualification of materials for the space environment, vacuum test, vacuum chamber design, cleanroom design, precision cleaning of small particulate and molecular films and behavior of thin films,” said John Havermann, president and CEO of Fornax-AM.
“His brilliance, scientific rigor, and leadership skills will greatly contribute to the success of our company going forward,” added Havermann.
He led the invention of the effusion cell and the development of a process for passively tracking film deposition during the thermal vacuum bakeout using ellipsometry.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Nichols served as an aerospace engineer and scientist at ITT, Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) and Raytheon.
The Fornax-AM chief scientist has bachelor’s degrees in physics and mathematics from Duquesne University and a master’s degree in physics from the Catholic University of America.
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