Jeff Thompson knows that being one of only 11 faculty members means taking on a lot of responsibility. He teaches freshmen through seniors, supervises graduate admissions, and still finds time for his research on negative ions. Dr. Thompson graduated from UT in 1989 with a Ph.D. in physics and is now an associate professor of physics and chemical physics at the University of Nevada, Reno. A Tullahoma Tennessee native, he earned a bachelor's degree in physics at UCLA before coming to Knoxville for graduate work. His advisor was Dr. David Pegg. "He was an ideal graduate student," Dr. Pegg said. "He was a very conscientious student. He worked very hard." During his graduate study at Tennessee, Dr. Thompson was co-author on a dozen papers, four of which appeared in Physical Review Letters. Dr. Pegg said they worked closely, "arm to arm." Their group started a project from scratch and discovered that calcium can form a negative ion. At the time, this was a new discovery, not predicted by the theorists. A lot of publicity came out of it, including nods in New Scientist and Physics Today. The work's key paper, "Evidence for a Stable Negative Ion of Calcium," was published in Physical Review Letters. After finishing his doctoral work, Dr. Thompson spent a year at UT as a post-doc before heading off to Colorado, where he was a post-doc for two years at the Joint Institute Laboratory of Astrophysics before joining the UNR faculty. He is now an associate professor in the physics department, which has 11 academic faculty and 10 research faculty members. In addition to his research, he carries a full teaching load. "I teach everything from physics 100 (general survey of physics) through senior level quantum mechanics," Dr. Thompson said. Teaching has provided him with some interesting student stories. Among his more unusual anecdotes is the astronomy student who inquired of him, during class discussion, where the aliens on earth live. Dr. Thompson completes his juggling act as director of the department's graduate program, which includes going through admission applications, making offers, taking phone calls, answering lots of e-mail, and entertaining visitors. When someone shows up asking graduate program questions, "I'm the person the office calls," he said. He also finds time for his research (experimental studies using laser photoelectron spectroscopy to investigate negative ions) and stays in touch with Dr. Pegg, who said he hopes they can work together in the next year on a collaboration at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, California. When not consumed with research, graduate applications, or alien-oriented questions, Dr. Thompson finds time to indulge in his hobbies, including fly-fishing, hiking in the mountains and deserts near Reno, and skiing. He also spends time with his family, including wife Michele, sons Peter, 9, and Patrick 2. "With a seven-year difference, I'd forgotten a lot about two-year olds," he said. I think I'd forgotten it on purpose." As for UT, this is one graduate with no complaints. "I'm very happy with the education I received," he said. "The people I worked with were very helpful in my career. It's worked out well for me." Cross Sections, Fall 2000 Issue, Contents Page UT Physics News & Notes Page UT Physics Home Page This page was last updated on January 5, 2001. Please send comments to cal@utk.edu.