Understanding our place in the universe

Brian Nord first fell in love with physics when he was a teenager growing up in Wisconsin. His high school physics program wasn't exceptional, and he sometimes struggled to keep up with class material, but those difficulties did nothing to dampen his interest in the subject. In addition to the main curriculum, students were encouraged to independently study topics they found interesting, and Nord quickly developed a fascination with the cosmos. "A touchstone that I often come back to is space," he says. Nord was an avid reader of comic books, and astrophysics appealed to his desire to become a part of something bigger.