About Nic
TL;DR
My name is Nicholas Piercy.
- I am insatiably curious.
- I am a problem solver.
- I am a welder.
- I am a diver.
- I enjoy traveling.
- I enjoy learning.
- I love to laugh.
- I love pizza!
Hello there!
When thinking of how to describe myself to the curious reader, I find it hard to put a box around who I am. In fact, I think describing who I am is somewhat impossible since we are all a work in progress, evolving into new people each and every day.
I consider myself a curious person, and I enjoy learning new things. I easily recognize patterns in my everyday life, which is likely a big contributor as to why I gravitated toward mathematics and engineering. Aside from my academic and professional ventures, I love to have fun and laugh. I have a rather dry sense of humor. I make lots of small jokes that usually go unnoticed, unless you are my brother, who gets my humor better than anyone else. I also like to make math puns that usually make no sense to anyone but me!
I suppose I will describe a little bit about what I am currently doing with my time and what I have done in the past, then I’ll leave the who I am bit as an excercise for the reader.
As of now
I am currently working as a graduate student researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I am working on an approach to modeling the thermal history in additive manufaturing, specifically in wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM). My work has been primarily focused on numerical techniques and code development supporting the computational approach.
Prior to starting my graduate studies, I earned a bachelor of science degree in mathematics with a minor in physics from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. I obtained the degree over a long period of time, working full time in a steel fabrication shop during the day and completing coursework in the evenings.