Texas A&M inspires former student to pursue career in academics

Dr. Kevin Nixon ‘23 was a graduate teaching fellow at Texas A&M University, allowing him to work side by side with a faculty member to teach a junior-level chemical engineering course. 

He attributes the fellowship as a stepping stone to his September appointment to assistant professor at Louisiana Tech University. 

“Being able to work as a teaching fellow in the chemical engineering department was a wonderful opportunity,” Nixon said. “We had about 100 students in the class, which was daunting at first. But gaining experience in teaching and developing new lectures on my own was quite insightful. In addition to teaching, designing homework, exam questions and holding office hours solidified not only my decision to pursue a faculty position, but was also very helpful in successfully landing one.” 

Nixon’s research at Texas A&M was focused on synthesizing and characterizing novel ion-conducting polymers for electrochemical applications. He hopes to expand this work at Louisiana Tech by looking at unique ion-conducting block copolymers for fuel cells.  

“Part of my current work is motivated by my experience at Texas A&M with ion-conducting block copolymers for lithium-ion batteries for my Ph.D. research,” Nixon said. “I specifically focused on changing the architecture of those polymers to a star shape instead of linear. In my independent lab, I’m hoping to leverage that experience to explore novel ion-conducting star block copolymer chemistries for use in electrochemical energy devices.”  

Nixon’s overall goal is to stay in academia and expand into other research areas. 

“That’s one of the cool things about being in academia,” Nixon said. “Looking back, what my advisors and mentors did early in their careers was quite different from what they’re doing now. Having the opportunity to potentially pivot to some other interesting ideas that I haven’t yet thought of is very exciting.”