Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson is a Professor of Experimental Physics at Imperial College London. He gained his DPhil at the University of Oxford in 1980 in the area of atomic spectroscopy. Following postdoctoral work in Germany and the UK, he worked at the National Physical Laboratory on the first experiments with laser cooled trapped ions in the UK. In 1986 he moved to Imperial College London where his research focuses on the dynamics of laser-cooled ions in Penning traps. At Imperial he has held several administrative appointments including six years as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Physics Department, and he is currently the College's Senior Consul. During nearly 30 years of research at Imperial he has supervised around 30 PhD students working on different aspects of the physics of trapped ions, along with many more undergraduate project students. He has taught a variety of lecture courses including basic vibrations and waves, atomic physics and optics.