Leadership Council
Dr. Anthony Thomas
Chief Scientist & Associate Director for Theoretical and Computational Physics
Dr. Anthony Thomas is the Chief Scientist and Associate Director for Theoretical and Computational Physics at Jefferson Lab. Dr. Thomas has overall responsibility for the laboratory's scientific programs, notable the ongoing 6 GeV program and the planned 12 GeV Upgrade. He leads the internationally recognized Theory Center and oversees Jefferson Lab's role in the national Lattice QCD collaboration. Dr. Thomas leads the Lab's long range planning and helps shape the future of the laboratory.
Thomas came to Jefferson Lab in 2004, with more than 30 years of experience in nuclear and particle physics. He has held positions at the University of British Columbia, TRIUMF and CERN. In his most recent position, at the University of Adelaide, he was the Elder Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Mathematical Physics, where he had also served as Director of the Special Research Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter, Director of the Australian National Institute for Theoretical Physics, Physics Department Chair, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science and University Council Representative. He has also served as President of the Australian Institute of Physics. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science as well as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and the (UK) Institute of Physics. He has received numerous awards, including the Harrie Massey Medal (IoP), the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal (Australian Academy of Science), a von Humboldt Research Prize (Alexander von Humboldt Research Foundation) and the Walter Boas Medal (AIP). His interests include chiral symmetry, lattice QCD, quark models, structure functions, nuclear forces, symmetries and symmetry breaking.
Dr. Thomas earned his B.S. (1970) and Ph.D. (1974) from Flinders University. He also holds a D.Sc from Adelaide University, has authored more than 450 scientific papers and has served on numerous committees, including the Commission C12 of the IUPAP (International Union of Pure and Applied Physics) and the Beirat at the Nuclear Physics Institute of FZ-Juelich. He has Chaired the Committee on International Cooperation in Nuclear Physics (established by C12), the National Committee for Physics (Australian Academy of Science), the Experiment Evaluation Committee at TRIUMF and the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility Visiting Committee. Dr. Thomas currently Chairs the IUPAP Working Group (WG.9) on International Cooperation in Nuclear Physics and is a member of the OECD Global Science Forum Working Group on Nuclear Physics.