Dr. Brad Conrad is a national treasure.

I have worked with him for about 8 years now. You immediately learn that he is the colleague you go to when you want to do something amazing to help people but don’t know how to get started. He listens and finds ways to help you. He is such a good mentor. I kept going to him and he kept helping. You are like “man this dude is pretty amazing for spending so much time helping me”. But then you find out he does for everyone!! Somewhere in all of that we became friends. Listen, there are very few people that can get me to have a beer and relax at a professional meeting. Brad is definitely one of like three people out there.

Dr. Brad Conrad is one of the premier advocates for young physics students in our country. He has molded so many students into amazing professionals. Right now he is working at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as the Education and Workforce Development Manager. Basically helping to connect young scientists and engineers to industry jobs where help is badly needed.

I started off this blog post by calling Dr. Conrad a national treasure – kind of corny thing to say about your buddy right? But when you consider how important it is for national defense for the us to have successful high-skilled technology workers and that Brad is literally helping to keep students toward that path at scale, it actually isn’t so corny any more.

I am so proud that Dr. Brad Conrad has had a mentor role with Cosmic Pathways – I turned him immediately after I had the idea. I am also happy he is going to be leading our career panel and getting the good word out for how studying physics can lead to high-paying, highly-rewarding careers. Go Cosmic Pathways!

We make a podcast-style discussion on Cosmic Pathways and here is the video (enjoy, and like this and send it to everyone):

I have so many awesome pictures of Brad with students, dressed up as spherical cow, (even with his hair dyed blue) etc. I decided to go with a picture with one of the students from my research lab (Tanner Grogan) from way back, 2017.