John Thomas

John Thomas is the John S. Risley Distinguished Professor of Physics at North Carolina State University (NC State), part of the College of Sciences. He holds a B.S. (1973) and Ph.D. (1979) in Physics from MIT, where he was a Hertz Foundation Fellow and later received the C.S. Draper Chair. Before joining NC State in 2011, he was at Duke University as the Fritz London Professor. His research focuses on ultra-cold atomic gases, particularly strongly interacting Fermi gases and their hydrodynamic properties.

Key contributions include developing optical trapping techniques and pioneering studies of unitary Fermi gases, which model systems like neutron stars and quark-gluon plasmas. His JETlab group explores quantum hydrodynamics, spin-energy correlations, and optical control of interactions. Notable awards include the NIST Precision Measurements Grant (1990–1993) and the Davisson-Germer Prize in Atomic Physics (2018).

Recent work emphasizes universal hydrodynamic transport, spin dynamics in Fermi gases, and energy-resolved correlation measurements. His publications span quantum viscosity, shock wave dynamics, and energy-space lattice simulations. Thomas collaborates on optical control of Feshbach resonances and has advised numerous graduate students through his NC State lab.