ND EE Double Domer Excited About What the Future Holds

Following in his brother’s footsteps, Nicolas (Nico) Garcia attended the University of Notre Dame for his undergraduate degree. Although his brother majored in Computer Science, Nico decided early on he wanted to pursue Electrical Engineering. As a result, he recently wrapped up his nine years at Notre Dame.  Garcia is a double domer, having now earned his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering at Notre Dame. 

During his undergraduate studies, Nicolas enrolled in a course taught by Professor Jon Chisum. Impressed by Dr. Chisum’s research, Nico eventually applied for a NDnano Undergraduate Research Fellowship (NURF) to join Dr. Chisum’s growing research team. During his senior year, Nico designed and measured artificial dielectric structures with applications for high-frequency communications and 5G wireless systems. Specifically, Nico worked on silicon processing techniques for artificial dielectric technology. He became familiar with most aspects of wafer processing, including photoresist layering, photolithography, and Bosch DRIE etching. 

During his NURF experience, Nico seriously entertained the idea of pursuing a Ph.D.; he eventually was accepted into Notre Dame’s Ph.D. program and remained as a researcher under Dr. Chisum.  As a result of his uninterrupted time with the Chisum Lab, Nico was able to continue the research he started as an undergrad. While this made for a relatively smooth transition to grad school, he still found the graduate student experience to be extremely demanding: “Grad school is characterized by a few recurring themes, the worst of these being all-nighters, dead-end ideas, and projects that go on for months without results. Ultimately though, you eventually get some exciting nugget (ideally many nuggets) of discovery that are worth the rigors.”

One of the things Nico has enjoyed the most about his experience at Notre Dame is the degree of cohesion of the Notre Dame community: “Notre Dame is outright fanatical at times”, he claims. Nico deeply appreciated the camaraderie between the students, faculty, and the extended Notre Dame community. 

Nicolas is very grateful for Professor Chisum, his mentor, advisor, friend, and now business partner. “I want to offer one piece of advice if you are considering graduate school,” said Garcia, “make sure your advisor is someone you want to work for, and with. You will be accountable to this person to a degree you have probably not felt since living with your parents/legal guardian. But unlike your parents, your advisor is not bound to you by unconditional love”.

Nico and Professor Chisum have started a tech company called Cheshir Industries, Inc., which will design and market low-power, low-cost beamforming antennas for emerging millimeter-wave communications in industry.

“I’m grateful for my time at Notre Dame and I am sad to be leaving the dome. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t take these skills out and put them to use for industry.”