The Daily Universe
BYU Honors student Gabe Richardson is working with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. (Gabe Richardson)
“Curiosity is a necessity working at NASA as we work to solve some of the hardest problems,” Richardson said. “The Honors focus on interdisciplinary thinking has helped maintain my curious mind and continue to love learning many kinds of new ideas. These new ideas create pathways for creativity and innovation in solving hard problems.”
Richardson was working on developing high-reflecting mirrors for spacecraft optics at NASA when he decided to ask the principal investigator if he could get further involved in the program. His skills in optical fabrication and testing were the perfect match for what the team needed. Richardson has been instrumental in developing NASA’s Quantum Dot Spectrometer, which lets scientists interpret light-matter interactions on a miniaturized scale.