Research Group Members

Professor Gregory B. Thompson with the LEAP.
Professor Gregory B. Thompson with the LEAP.

Professor Gregory B. Thompson

Professor Gregory B. Thompson joined the faculty in the Department of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering at The University of Alabama as an Assistant Professor in 2003.  He was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 2008 and promoted to Professor in 2012. In 2018, he was selected as a Distinguished University Research Professor for the UA System and honored with the James R. Cudworth Chair in the college of engineering in 2020.  He currently serves as the Director of the Alabama Analytical Research Center, which houses multiple electron, ion, and x-ray imaging microscopes and a full time staff of clerical and technical members. In addition, he is the Director of the Materials Science PhD program which has more than 35 graduate students and 40 faculty across different departments. Professor Thompson has published over 220 peer-reviewed articles in his research areas of analytical microscopy, structure-property relationships in deformation and magnetism, and phase transformations. He received his Ph.D. (2003) and M.S. (1998) from The Ohio State University in Materials Science & Engineering and a B.S. (1996) in Physics from Brigham Young University. Between his M.S. and Ph.D., he worked as a process engineer for Multi-Arc Inc.’s Southeast Regional Coatings Center, which provided hard coatings for cutting tool applications. He is an active member of the Microscopy Society of America, and The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS).  Professor Thompson was the recipient of the National Science Foundation Early Career Award in 2005 and TMS’s Young Leader and International Young Leader awards in 2005 and 2008, respectively. He was awarded the Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor of the Year for The University of Alabama in 2014 and was a TMS Brimacombe medalist in 2017. In 2018, UA’s College of Engineering presented him the Hackney Leadership award for his work on behalf of the college. He has been the committee chair for more than 40 M.S. and Ph.D. degrees and has received funding from multiple federal agencies and industrial sponsors.​
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