Student to Steward: How One Research Apprenticeship Built a Career — and a Lab
Nicholas Clements
Nicholas Clements was a junior in mechanical engineering when he somewhat accidentally discovered his life's work.
He had applied to CU °Ç¸ç³Ô¹Ï's Discovery Learning Apprenticeship (DLA) with an eye toward biomedical engineering, drawn to the field's intersection of science and human health. Professor Shelly Miller, who studies indoor air quality and infection control, convinced him that her research on ultraviolet light disinfection of bacteria was close enough to what he had in mind.
"It wasn't," Clements now admits with a laugh. But somewhere in the process of studying what floats in the air around us, he found himself genuinely hooked.
"Getting exposure to air quality and infection control really led me to a topic that I wanted to pursue," he said. "Whether that was in research or in industry, I didn't really know at the time. But it was a way to dive into something I found out I really liked."
Staying to Go Deeper
What began as a summer apprenticeship became a graduate degree. When Professors Miller, Mike Hannigan, and Jenna Milford secured an EPA grant the following year, Clements had the opportunity to pursue a PhD. He took it.
He is now a Professional Research Assistant at CU °Ç¸ç³Ô¹Ï, managing both the Building Energy Smart Technology Center and the Larson HVAC Lab, two research facilities housed within the same department where he once worked as an undergraduate apprentice.
"It really was a turning point," he said of the DLA program. "Totally."
The Other Side of the Table
Having spent his career on both sides of the undergraduate research relationship, Clements has developed a clear-eyed view of what these programs offer, as well as what they require of mentors.
He now regularly brings DLA and SPUR students into his lab, which runs exclusively on undergraduate research assistance. He is thoughtful about the distinction between working with undergraduates and graduate students, noting that the scope of projects and level of supervision need to be calibrated accordingly.
"You kind of have to know how to work with undergrads," he said. "But once you give them the right direction, they're capable of doing quite a bit."
His SPUR student from the previous year, he says, was among the most impressive undergraduates he has ever mentored. She completed and co-authored a full research paper, and the lab hired her through the summer to keep her work going. Clements is now actively helping her find a position in New York City, where she hopes to launch her career.
"Undergrads can be vital to keeping things going," he said. "They can fill in gaps where graduate students might want to spend their time doing something more intensive, and they can skill up on things that will be important in their careers — experimental design, data analysis, technical writing."
Why Funding Matters
Clements is also frank about the practical stakes of program funding. The cost-sharing structure of SPUR and DLA, he explains, directly shapes how many students his lab can bring on in a given year.
"It typically doubles the number of students we can hire," he said. "Being able to go from one to two or two to three is really helpful for us."
The SPUR program, with its full-time summer commitment, is his favorite of the two. The longer runway, he says, allows students to move past orientation and into substantive, and sometimes remarkable, work. On the day of this interview, one of his current students was in the lab learning to solder copper pipes together as part of building an educational platform for the center.
"We wouldn't be able to hire him without the Dean's support," Clements said. "Having that cost split is really helpful."
For Clements, the programs are not just a pipeline of labor. They are, in many ways, a reflection of his own beginning, a reminder that the right opportunity, offered at the right moment, can set an entire career in motion.