Nicholas Demos, a physics graduate student, didn’t travel a conventional path to MIT. A first-generation college student, Demos didn’t have a clear trajectory in mind when he first attended California State University at Fullerton after high school. “It was kind of the path of least resistance,” Demos says. When his father passed away in the middle of his undergraduate studies, Demos left school to run the family business, Novatech Lighting Systems, which makes handheld spotlights. He ran the company for five years, but business didn’t suit him, he says: “The…
