Nicholas Martel

Olean, New York, native Nicholas Martel graduated in May with a major in physics and a minor in mathematics.

He remembers having narrowed his college wish list down to St. Bonaventure and one other school when he learned of his acceptance into the grant program.

“Although my choice was probably always going to be Bona’s, the program seemed exciting and reaffirmed my decision,” he said.

Martel, a Presidential Scholarship recipient, was inducted into Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honor society. He was a physics lab assistant during his junior and senior years at St. Bona-venture. He was a member of the university Concert Band and won the Instrumental Music Award his senior year. He was also a member of the ORION Astronomy Club, serving as president and vice president, and of the SEARCH Retreat Team.

He served as the physics coordinator/intern for a Dream It Do It Western New York event on campus, was a Kids College instructor at Jamestown Community College in Olean, and completed the Competitive EDGE program through the Career and Professional Readiness Center.

The NSF program’s on- and off-campus symposia and conferences were particularly rewarding for Martel. “They exposed me to work and topics in fields I knew little about and would not have otherwise,” he said.

The program succeeded in creating a sense of community among the students, said Martel.

“To say that we all became best friends would be an exaggeration, but the program certainly introduced me to people I would not otherwise have known. We were encouraged to take classes together and attend regular programming together,” he said. “I did feel I was part of a learning community, not because the program molded us into a closed-off community, but because it reminded us not to close ourselves off, to reach out.”

The day after he graduated, Martel began a full-time internship in the package and product design engineering departments at Siemens Power and Gas Division’s Dresser-Rand facility in Olean. “I hope this leads to a full-time career in industry, but I would also love to pursue graduate school in physics or mechanical engineering, or maybe earn an MBA,” he said.