Concordia grads Clara Hollenhorst, Zoran Kahric and Andrew Lea at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Md
So one wouldn’t necessarily expect to find three Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science grads at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Yet that’s where Concordia caught up with Clara Hollenhorst, BEng (elec.) 80, Zoran Kahric, BEng (elec.) 97, and Andrew Lea, BEng (mech.) 97.
Zoran A. Kahric
Describe what you do at NASA.
Zoran A. Kahric: “I have been working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center since 2001. My first job here was researching how electronics perform under radiation exposure in space. It’s a hard life for all those satellites flying high above us.
Recently, I’m working on developing and testing laser detectors. NASA is getting ready to launch the ICESat-2 satellite next year that will measure the thickness of ice on the poles and height of trees in the rainforest. Very short laser pulses will be sent at a rate of 10,000 per second from the satellite flying at 10 km per second and 500 km high, and captured 0.003 seconds later.
A very accurate ‘stop watch’ will measure the time it takes for photons to bounce back in order to calculate the thickness of the ice at the North Pole or the height of Brazilian cherry trees in the Amazon rainforest.
Currently I am working on a project to communicate with the ICESat-2 spacecraft, download data from orbit and get scientific data from it. Later next year we will start collecting real data from the spacecraft and we will get much better information about melting ice and trends in vegetation growth.”
How did Concordia help you reach your goal of working for NASA?
ZAK: “I came to Montreal as a college student from Croatia barely speaking English, with no French, and no idea how the Canadian education system worked. My two aunts lived in the area and they helped me to settle, figure out how schools work, got me into English classes and explained to me how I had to pay taxes on every dollar I made. That last lesson was a very unusual concept for an Eastern European student.
When I applied to Concordia my English wasn’t very good and I still remember talking to the student affairs coordinator, Linda MacDonald, trying to explain how I could handle math and physics classes. Without her help I would never be where I am now.
Once the classes started I had fun, but also some new worries. I discovered that a few classes were much harder than I expected, but most of my professors were willing to spend time and effort explaining, for example, why electrical current flows a certain way and not the way I was sure it should.
After the first year, things got more interesting, classes were smaller and I was able to pick courses I enjoyed.
After graduating from Concordia I moved to the United States and decided to enrol in graduate school. I was a bit skeptical whether my Concordia degree would be accepted in the U.S. but I was accepted in all 10 schools I applied to, including one Ivy League school.
In the end, I chose Boston University and my Concordia undergraduate skills were just as good as other students who came from much more prestigious schools.”
How did you get to NASA?
ZAK: “We lived in Boston in 2001 when my wife got an offer to do a fellowship in endocrinology at Georgetown University Hospital. After going over ads in the career section of the Washington Post, and sending resumes to a few companies, one of them that had a contract with NASA Goddard, called me for an interview.
One morning I flew in for an interview, spoke with my future supervisor, went for lunch together, and signed a contract on the hood of his car. It was one of those moments that changes your life but you are not aware of it at that moment.”
What advice would you give to younger students who might want to follow in your footsteps?
ZAK: “My advice for current students would be to not worry about your grades, but rather learn why and how things work. Take classes you like, not ones that are easy. Take classes that will make you smarter in the end, and not just boost your GPA.
Pick a project were you will learn unexpected things and supervisors who will spend time with you. When you graduate, your future employer will ask you what you know and they won’t care where you learned it.
University is a place where you learn not just math and physics, or English and French. It is a place where you learn to deal with all kinds of problems, people and cultures. Those are skills you will need later in life.”