Nick Vickers (MATE senior) won the award for Best Student Poster at the 2008 Society of Vacuum Coaters Technical Conference, Chicago, IL, April 21-24, 2008. His poster entitled "Design and Fabrication of a Resistance-Switching Memory Device" was given top honors (along with a cash award) and competed against 22 other posters presented by undergraduate and graduate research groups from around the world.

Nick received a scholarship from the SVC Foundation in 2008, based on the project he worked on as part of the Cal Poly Honors Program along with William Dunn (EE) and M. Jain (EE). He was invited by the SVC Foundation to attend the SVC conference and present the results of this work