In this series of posts, we sit down with a few of the keynote speakers of the 245th AAS meeting to learn more about them and their research. You can see a full schedule of their talks here, and read our other interviews here!
Meet Dr Shouleh Nikzad, a JPL Fellow, Senior Research Scientist, who leads the Science Division at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. She is a Principal Investigator for the Advanced Detector Arrays, Imaging Systems, and Nanoscience Team. Additionally, she holds visiting faculty and lecturer appointments at the Caltech Physics Math, and Astronomy Division and Engineering and Applied Sciences Division. Her research interests include development of ultraviolet detectors and spectrometers and the science gleaned through these instruments for a myriad of applications across various disciplines.
As a Woman in STEM Leadership
In March 2022, Dr. Nikzad became the first woman to lead the JPL Science Division– a moment certainly meant for history books. Dr. Nikzad saw this as a platform for making a difference and has endeavored on taking every opportunity to inspire other aspiring women to reach their goals. She emphasizes her passion for mentorship, stating that she values the advice she got from those who mentored her. Therefore ensures that she is available for not only women who need her guidance but also for the science division and everyone in the larger JPL community from all backgrounds and demographics who can benefit from her mentorship. As one of the few female JPL Fellows (a recognition at the highest non-management level, awarded to honor one’s contributions that made a difference to JPL) she was able to expand her network especially to interact with women in various stages of their career. While she often shares advice from the lessons she learned from her own experiences, as Division Manager and a lab PI she also understands the importance of understanding how the work climate changes with time and the evolution of the scientific and technical disciplines. Therefore, she has made it a point to reach out to the rest of the division and JPL community at large and learn from everyone’s collective experiences to make improvements that can help in scientific progress.
Having served on the Inclusion Advisory Committee at JPL, she learned that there’s a lot more work to be done to improve diversity and inclusion at JPL and the scientific and technical community at large. She has been mindful of being an inclusive leader as she said, “DEIA [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility] elevates everyone”. It starts from being aware of unconscious bias, and taking steps to mitigate that– through bystander training and taking a stand of allyship in order to be helpful and make things better for the workplace community. Speaking about the larger astronomy community, Dr. Nikzad said there is still work to be done to be mindful of demographic and gender parities. She feels progress is being made to make the community better by incorporating DEIA in every aspect of the work.
Journey to the UV Light
Dr Nikzad’s work in this field of UV instrumentation and scientific applications finds its roots in her earlier work in college in fundamental physics. As a graduate student she used laser spectroscopy to study surface interactions with ions and energetic particles. She found this fascinating as they help one to gain a deeper understanding of phenomena that change physical properties at surfaces and interfaces. An example of this in astronomy is understanding the bombardment of the surface of the moon by particles in outer space. Her postdoctoral work in applied physics centered on materials nucleation and growth (i.e. the formation of a new phase of a material, like a crystal) assisted with ion interactions during molecular beam epitaxy (applying a thin layer of material called substrate to a crystal). This inspired her to explore how these processes impact the performance of semiconductor devices, which rely on the quality of surfaces and material interfaces. This led her to JPL’s Microdevices Laboratory that studies micro- and nano-fabrication techniques which have enabled instrumentation on various NASA missions, paving her way to UV technologies.
UV light, Dr Nikzad emphasises, gets absorbed by the skin of all things, including the human body, and hence it can be seen that UV photons interact with materials at nano-scales, within the first few layers. All her previous work on surfaces, probing changes in interfaces and surface interactions of different kinds of particles prepared her for the work she does now with the Advanced Detector Arrays, Imaging Systems, and Nanoscience Group.
Impact of UV technology development
Dr. Nikzad’s UV technology has found widespread applications. Her instruments have been used for ground-based observations at the Palomar, Kitt Peak, and Lick Observatories, in suborbital flights, and in instrumentation for astrophysics and planetary science instruments. Another memorable experience she recounted was one student project, using a sounding rocket to map the ozone concentration as a function of altitude. The quality and quantity of data received, and the flawless launch, landing and retrieval of the rocket resulted in a highly successful project. Other UV instrumentations were for a high altitude balloon, and a cubesat to characterize star-planet activity.
Beyond astronomy, Dr Nikzad’s work has found applications in semiconductor development. As features get smaller in microelectronics, the short wavelength extreme and far UV light become useful for lithography and as a tool to inspect these features. You need a highly efficient and stable camera to see the pulses from the high intensity lasers but more importantly to survive the high intensity lasers and continue to have high performance function.
Historically, a lot of inventions for space science and technology have been pivotal in breakthroughs in medicine– including advancements in MRI technology and the development of the Left Ventricular Assist Device for heart patients. Dr. Nikzad has worked with the medical community to find applications of her work in that field (like UV imaging, for instance) and the work of others, a venture she has been very passionate about. Her SPIE news article explores the various collaborations between JPL and medical researchers to apply space based technology for various diagnoses and treatments.
“When you work to solve one problem, the solutions you come up with can be repurposed to solve another problem.” Dr Nikzad has used this mantra for many aspects of her work, including experimenting with different materials in semiconductor development and to make photocathodes more stable. This philosophy guided a lot of her experiments and their subsequent results over the years.
Future of the Field
The Astro2020 decadal survey identified instrument development for Habitable Worlds Observatory as a key priority. There are a number of NASA Explorer level concepts for UV science. One of them is UVEX, a collaboration with Caltech and UC Berkeley, that aims to do a deep sky survey (deeper than GALEX) to study the dynamic universe and is enabled by sensors developed by Nikzad and her team. Cubesats are also now more capable in UV with the development of more powerful sensors. There are lunar and planetary instruments being planned and conceptualised, like a UV detector for some Enceladus mission concepts.
Final Thoughts
Dr. Nikzad defines her work as “Working in nanoscales to make an impact on galactic scales”. And her work since her days as a research student has set her on the track she is on. Her advice for students is to learn as much as you can and let your curiosity motivate you to figure out solutions by either working on the problem at the lab or stay up thinking about it. Finding internships to work with different researchers can help you find what you are passionate about. There is no substitute for trying different things to figure out what it is you want to do.
She invites everyone to attend her talk, where she hopes to cover underlying nanoscale science that has led to nanotech on their impact on galactic scales, spin-off works like the curved arrays (that work like the eye’s retina) which can be used to make compact arrays in telescopes. “The future is bright”– for UV technology in astrophysics and beyond!
A Detector Backstory: How Silicon Detectors Came to Enable Space Missions, by Dr. Shouleh Nikzad is on Tuesday, January 14 at 3:40 PM ET in Potomac Ballroom AB.
Edited by Jessie Thwaites
Featured Image Credit: JPL