Assistant Professor Dustin Swarm has received an award from NASA for a project entitled “Developing a Gamma Ray Reflectometer for 511 keV Multilayer Performance Characterization." This project supports the development of a laboratory-based 511 keV Gamma Ray Reflectometer (GRR) to advance multilayer (ML) mirror technology needed for a future imaging telescope capable of resolving positron sources in the galaxy. Such a telescope requires high-reflectivity grazing‑incidence optics at soft gamma‑ray energies, but current testing depends on limited beam time at overseas synchrotron facilities, creating a bottleneck in the design and fabrication cycle. By enabling in‑house characterization of ML coatings at the target 511 keV energy, the GRR will accelerate technology readiness progress and provide critical infrastructure for future hard X-ray and soft gamma‑ray optics development.