Rate My Professor Walker Thad

Thad Walker is the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he joined the faculty in 1990 as an assistant professor and progressed to full professor in 1997. He earned a BS in Physics from Abilene Christian University in 1983, an MA in Physics from Princeton University in 1986, and a PhD in Physics from Princeton University in 1988, with a dissertation on the relaxation of long-lived atomic states. After his doctorate, he served as a research associate at Princeton University and JILA at the University of Colorado from 1988 to 1990.

Walker's research centers on atomic, molecular, and optical physics, with expertise in quantum information processing using Rydberg atoms, spin-exchange optical pumping, and atomic magnetometry. In his laboratory, he and his students use lasers to cool atoms to microKelvin temperatures, investigate ultracold atomic interactions, and develop spin-polarized atomic sources for applications including magnetic resonance imaging and biomagnetism such as fetal magnetocardiography. He co-authored the book Optically Pumped Atoms (2010) with William Happer and Yuan-Yu Jau. His highly cited publications include "Quantum information with Rydberg atoms" (Reviews of Modern Physics, 2010), "Spin-exchange optical pumping of noble-gas nuclei" (Reviews of Modern Physics, 1997), "Observation of Rydberg blockade between two atoms" (Nature Physics, 2009), and "Demonstration of a neutral atom controlled-NOT quantum gate" (Physical Review Letters, 2010). Walker has received the American Physical Society Fellowship (1999) for pioneering work in spin exchange, optical pumping, ultracold collisions, and laser cooling; the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship (2022); H.I. Romnes Fellowship (1996); David and Lucile Packard Fellowship (1992); National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award (1992); and Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1991). He has mentored over thirty students and postdocs from high school to postdoctoral levels and was elected vice-chair of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics.