Dr. Gregory Thompson, Distinguished University Research Professor and executive director of the Alabama Materials Institute, has been named a fellow of the International Field Emission Society.
Election as an IFES Fellow is one of the society’s highest honors, recognizing individuals who have made significant contributions to the science and application of field emission, atom probe tomography, and related phenomena. Fellows are nominated by their peers for their sustained excellence and impact in the field.
Thompson was recognized for his contributions to “the advancement of specimen preparation and correlative microscopy methods that understand phase stability behavior in nanocrystalline materials using atom probe tomography.” Fellows were formally inducted at the Atom Probe Tomography & Microscopy Conference in India.
“I am deeply grateful to be a recipient of this honor,” said Thompson. “From my first endeavor into atom probe tomography as a graduate student to being part of the team that brought this technique to the university, and then working with students who have adapted it into their dissertations, I have been privileged to be part of this community.”
“Dr. Thompson’s work in materials characterization has had a transformative impact on the scientific community,” said Dr. Bryan Boudouris, vice president for research and economic development. “We are thrilled to see him recognized internationally for his research and leadership in this area.”
Thompson has worked at The University of Alabama for two decades in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, where he also served as the director of the interdisciplinary doctoral program in materials science for ten years. During his tenure as director, student enrollment in the program quadrupled.
Thompson’s research interests include phase transformations, deformation mechanisms, and analytical microscopy. He has studied a variety of materials, including magnetic thin films, shape memory metal alloys, ultrahigh temperature ceramics, and most recently ceramic fiber processing. He has also participated in extended research visits at Sandia National Laboratories, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and Leidos-Dynetics.
Thompson is an internationally recognized expert in materials characterization and processing with more than 290 peer-reviewed articles in his field. To date, he has mentored 29 doctoral students to the completion of their degrees at UA.
Founded in 1952, the International Field Emission Society is a scientific organization dedicated to advancing high field nanoscience and atom probe microscopy. Through its conferences, IFES fosters exchange among physicists, chemists, engineers, and materials scientists working at the forefront of atom probe tomography and related microscopy methods, instrumentation, and theory.