ABOVE: Ibrahim Cissé (center) and colleagues COURTESY OF DENIS PAISTE, MIT MATERIALS RESEARCH LABORATORY
Ibrahim Cissé spent hours as a child taking apart and trying to rebuild electronics. Other times, he would reenact NASA space shuttle liftoffs, tipping a chair backward onto the floor and then climbing in, his knees and face pointed skyward. He’d shake the chair to simulate shooting through Earth’s atmosphere as he watched Hollywood movies about space exploration. Captivated by the US space program as well as the idea of the American dream he saw portrayed on the big screen, the Niger native begged his parents to allow him to come to the US for college. They agreed, and with the help of a host family in North Carolina, he moved across the Atlantic at age 17.
In 2002, Cissé transferred from community college to North Carolina Central University (NCCU), where he worked with physicist Kinney ...
