William Colson

William Colson began his professional career at the Bendix Research Laboratory where he was awarded the Bendix Corporation Graduate Fellowship to attend Stanford University, earning a PhD in Physics, and beginning a lifelong fascination studying photons, relativistic electrons, and lasers, continuing over six decades.

As Distinguished Professor of Physics for twenty-five years at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, Bill combined teaching and research while thesis advisor to nearly one-hundred Masters and PhD students, guiding them through their own discoveries. He served as Principal Investigator on more than eighty research contracts, published over one-hundred refereed research papers, holds five patents, and has given more than one-hundred invited lectures throughout the U.S., Asia, and Europe to further the understanding of laser science.

In recognition during his career, Bill received the International Free-Electron Laser Prize from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Laser and Electro-Optic Society and became a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At retirement, he was given Emeritus status and was awarded the U.S. Navy Superior Civilian Service Medal, the highest award the Navy may bestow on a civilian employee.

After retirement, Bill’s activities expanded to include writing. He has co-authored “The Interview” with Award-Winning poet Peter Thabit Jones of Swansea, Wales, published in the “Seventh Quarry Swansea Poetry Magazine,” Issue Twenty-Four, 2016, and was a co-presenter for “Building Bridges Between Physics and Poetry” at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, May 6, Salem MA, 2017.

Bill has authored two books of flash fiction stories, Spectrum and Quests, in 2024 and 2025 respectively, published by The Seventh Quarry Press.