The 2009 Physics Distinguished Alumni /Postdoctoral Award will be presented to Dr. William Joseph Thompson, co-founder and Executive Vice President of  Circadiant Systems, Incorporated.  Dr. Thompson was a Postdoctoral Research Assistant with Professor Sarah Eno from 1993 to 1999, working on the Dzero experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. After leaving Maryland, he was offered a job at Lucent Corporation. They had heard of his expertise in fiber optics, and asked him to take over their 10 Gigabit R &D effort. This was quite an impressive offer- it’s not every day that a physicist doing fundamental research is offered a $1M laboratory in a major technology company. Dr. Thompson worked for Lucent for a few years, after which he co-founded his own company: Circadiant Systems, Incorporated.

Circadiant Systems, Inc. provides optical test systems to optical component developers, network equipment manufacturers, and telecom service providers. Dr. Thompson is responsible for operations, engineering and quality assurance. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from Stony Brook, New York and has published several papers and patents in optics and physical processes.

The Physics Distinguished Alumni/Postdoctoral Award is given annually to honor a former student's professional success. The award will be presented on April 24th at the 21^st Annual CMPS Academic Festival. The festival recognizes the outstanding performance of our alumni, students, faculty and staff.