{"id":76431,"date":"2025-11-29T00:01:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T07:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=76431"},"modified":"2025-12-10T10:04:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:04:22","slug":"henry-garland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/henry-garland\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate Henry Garland: Pushing boundaries in science, sports and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a high schooler growing up in Deer Valley,<\/span> Henry Garland<\/span><\/b> dreamed of becoming a psychologist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was playing a lot of sports and a lot of video games,\u201d Garland said. \u201cI was fascinated by the people who get so good at these things that they get paid to do them. I wanted to understand what makes them different. I think it has something to do with their mental state.\u201d\u202f<\/span><\/p>\n

Now on the brink of graduation from NAU, Garland has pivoted from psychology to physics. But he\u2019s still drawn to people who push their minds and bodies to the limit\u2014so much so that he\u2019s become one of them.\u202f<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I find something I like,\u201d Garland said, \u201cI notice I get completely immersed in it, maybe a little obsessive about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Henry<\/a>
“When I find something I like, I notice I get completely immersed in it, maybe a little obsessive,” Garland said.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Take academic achievement, for example. Once the Honors College student and chemistry major found a research topic he loved, he went all in, winning three undergraduate research grants and co-authoring two peer-reviewed papers in the span of four years. Those are stats most graduate students would envy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the outdoors. Rather than summit any old Colorado fourteener, Garland had to climb Mt. Elbert, the tallest peak in the Rocky Mountains at 14,440 feet. His newest hobby is running, and he\u2019s already scheming to achieve that elusive sub-3-hour marathon pace.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When it comes to the future, Garland\u2019s goals are no less lofty. He hopes to attend a top graduate school, earn a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering, find work in an esteemed lab and potentially become a college professor.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

NAU chemistry professor <\/span>Stephanie Hurst <\/span><\/b>thinks those are fitting aspirations for \u201cone of the most promising undergraduates\u201d she\u2019s ever worked with.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOver these years I have had the privilege of watching him grow into not only an exceptional young scientist, but also a thoughtful, generous and keen member of the NAU community,\u201d Hurst said. \u201cIn my experience, it is rare to encounter someone who combines such intellectual ability, research creativity and thoughtfulness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

From languishing to leveling up<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Garland\u2019s vision for the future wasn\u2019t always so clear. For much of high school, he had little interest in academics beyond computer science. His world revolved around team sports and in-person gaming with friends\u2014until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an only child, so I spent pretty much an entire year alone,\u201d Garland said. \u201cI would spend the whole day watching YouTube videos, and at the end of the day I\u2019d feel really bad. I thought, \u2018I\u2019m wasting so much time.\u2019 It scared me, so I started asking questions about who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Garland realized that if he wanted to attain an advanced degree, he needed to do some soul-searching and get his act together. He paid more attention in class. He put more thought into his assignments. And soon, he discovered subjects he loved: chemistry and physics.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Henry<\/a>
Garland has his eye on a sub-3-hour marathon pace, an oft-elusive goal for runners.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI had a very caring teacher for AP Physics-C, which is a mechanics class,\u201d Garland said. \u201cHe really stressed the importance of breaking down complex problems into multiple simple steps, and that made it more digestible to someone like me who hadn\u2019t really paid attention in math or science before. It was fulfilling to make sense of a problem and solve it on my own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In pursuit of more problem-solving, Garland enrolled at NAU, won a NASA Space Grant and joined Hurst\u2019s lab. There, he leveraged the power of the NAU supercomputer Monsoon and his own experience with the coding language Python to enhance a graduate student\u2019s research on thin film materials that are used for superconducting devices, like those that power quantum computers, MRI machines and particle accelerators.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI realized I loved figuring out answers to things that aren\u2019t in the back of a book,\u201d Garland said. \u201cYou use a different part of your brain than you use as a student doing homework or taking an exam.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Like an elite athlete, Garland realized that to reach the top of his game, he needed more experience. With Hurst\u2019s mentorship, he landed an internship at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. Rather than logging hours on a computer, Garland was in the lab, blasting metal oxide targets with a high-powered laser to create thin-film materials that could be used in future renewable energy technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was thrust into pretty hardcore solid-state physics, which is a completely different kind of research,\u201d he said. \u201cI absolutely fell in love. It informed all of my next steps.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

STEMming with compassion<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Garland\u2019s goals got even more specific when, later, he spent a summer with ASU\u2019s molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) machines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith MBE, you use the world\u2019s strongest vacuum systems to create molecular beams of atoms,\u201d Garland said. \u201cIt gives you very precise control over the atoms so that you can create materials from the ground up\u201d\u2014materials that help power computers, renewable energy grids and more.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MBE machines are like the printers of the science world: They break all the time, and fixing them requires lots of creativity and saint-like levels of patience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think a lot of people have that, but it called to me,\u201d Garland said. \u201cWith all the troubleshooting and the cool physics involved, I think I can have a really fulfilling career doing this. I\u2019ll never get bored.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Henry<\/a>
Through a handful of research experiences, Garland found his scientific passion in molecular beam epitaxy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Garland said he doesn\u2019t just have professors like Hurst and<\/span> Gerrick Lindberg<\/span><\/b> to thank for pushing him in the direction of a problem-solving career. He also gives credit to the Honors College, whose liberal arts-focused courses helped round out his otherwise highly technical education and whose writing support staff helped him craft personal essays that stood out to NREL, ASU and NASA Space Grant.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One specific Honors College course\u2014<\/span>Melissa Schonauer<\/span><\/b>\u2019s Biology of Cancer\u2014bolstered not only his chemistry knowledge but also his relationship with his dad.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was an assignment where you had to interview someone who had cancer, and I interviewed my dad,\u201d Garland said. \u201cI was in elementary school when he was diagnosed, and at the time I didn\u2019t know how sick he was. I learned so much more about him and his cancer treatment because of Professor Schonauer.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Garland\u2019s time at NAU also taught him how to become a compassionate mentor. Through NAU\u2019s <\/span>Research Assistant Mentoring Program<\/span><\/a>, he helped connect fellow undergrads with valuable research opportunities, passing on the helpful tips he\u2019d gotten from Hurst and other faculty. He hopes those skills will someday come in handy, whether his career takes him to a lab, to the head of a college classroom or both.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, I\u2019d love to become a professor, because it\u2019s a good way to still do research while also making an impact and passing down your knowledge,\u201d Garland said. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to give back in some way.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/span><\/p>\n


\nJill Kimball | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a high schooler growing up in Deer Valley, Henry Garland dreamed of becoming a psychologist. \u201cI was playing a lot of sports and a lot of video games,\u201d Garland said. \u201cI was fascinated by the people who get so good at these things that they get paid to do them. I wanted to understand…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":76484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}