2022 Ensor Lectureship
Professor Thompson is Dean of the College of Engineering and Elizabeth Inez Kelley Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware. He leads a college of nearly 200 faculty, 3,600 students and 120 staff with a number of major research centers. Professor Thompson earned his B.ChE. from the University of Delaware, and M.S.E. degrees in Chemical Engineering and Nuclear Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan (UM).
He was a faculty member at the University of Michigan where he served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, Director of the Hydrogen Energy Technology Laboratory and Director of the Michigan-Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. His scholarly research on nanostructured materials for catalytic and energy storage applications is described in more than 150 publications and more than 10 patents.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the AIChE and recipient of awards including the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, McBride Distinguished Lectureship, Union Carbide Innovation Recognition Award, and Michiganian of the Year Award for his research, entrepreneurship, and teaching. He co-founded T/J Technologies, a developer of nanomaterials for advanced batteries that was acquired by A123 Systems, and Inmatech, a developer of low cost, high energy density supercapacitors for automotive and military applications.
Lecture: Turning Base Metals into Gold: The Unusual Properties of Nanostructured Early Transition Metal Carbides and Nitrides