After graduating from UC Berkeley, Nicholas spent 20 years in the Department of Energy National Lab system building and operating large scale, x-ray science facilities and instrumentation. Starting at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, he developed novel instrumentation and upgrades for the Advanced Light Source (ALS) and Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) user facilities. He then moved to SLAC National Lab at Stanford where he was the Chief Engineer for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), a 3-mile long x-ray free electron facility for ultrafast science.
Most recently, he is leading the engineering effort for building the world’s first useful quantum computer at PsiQuantum.