Nicholas Kocher

Experience

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  KocFen

  Mar 2018 - Aug 2022

  Automotive Restoration
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  NIU Huskie Motorsports FSAE

  Aug 2022 - now

  Powertrain tech and Chassis lead

  We are a student-led and organized Formula SAE team, with the goal of designing and building a Formula-Style open-wheel racecar. From there, we aim to successfully compete in a number of SAE competition series, where the car will be put through rigorous testing competing against other schools internationally.

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  Anderson R & D

  Jan 2023 - Sept 2023

  Fabricator

  Anderson Research and Development: Subcontractor for Caterpillar Inc and Amsted Industries Inc; we build and test heavy equipment parts.

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  Northern Illinois University

  Jan 2024 - now

  Undergraduate Research/Teaching Assistant and Lab Manager

  $650K USDA award to NIU could lead to the world’s first biomass pipeline. NIU’s Professor, Mahdi Vaezi is investigating the feasibility of constructing an innovative, first-of-its-kind biomass pipeline. The research project is supported by a $650,000 award over four years to NIU from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This could lay the groundwork for the world’s first biomass pipeline in Maine. Waste Advanced Solution Technologies and Ecosystems Laboratory (WASTE Lab) in Still Gym, where a 30-foot, closed circuit prototype pipeline will be assembled in coming months. NIU’s Department of Engineering Technology, College of Engineering and Engineering Technology and Division of Research and Innovation Partnerships (RIPS) are supporting the laboratory development as well. Collaborators on the grant are Dr. Parisa Mirbod (the Mirbod Lab) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Biofine Developments Northeast Inc., a biomass user and biorefinery. Vaezi intends to hire a Ph.D. student, three master’s students and several undergrads to work on lab components, and Senior Design teams also will tackle project aspects. “Besides research applications, this project has teaching applications in such areas as fluid mechanics, pump and piping systems, energy management and flow instrumentation,” Vaezi said. In consultation with the Construction Management Institute of Maine, the project will include a case study of the techno-economy of large-scale and long-distance biomass pipelines, for a potential 10-mile-long woodchips pipeline to supply a commercial port in Eastport, Maine. The woodchips would be pipelined in a slurry (a mixture with water) to the port and shipped to Europe. Show less