John Woollam

John A. Woollam is an American educator, research physicist, electrical engineer and George Holmes Distinguished Professor at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is also a successful entrepreneur who in 1987 founded the J.A. Woollam Co., a high-tech entity based in Lincoln, Nebraska, and a world leader in research, development and commercialization of ellipsometry instruments. Woollam is also a known as a philanthropist and nature conservationist.

Woollam was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His interest in physics, engineering and business was stimulated by his father, Arthur Woollam, who ran a water pump company in Kalamazoo. As a teenager John was not much interested in school classes, but he spent hours at his father's company studying and building pumps. This attitude changed in high school and College (Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio) where he majored in physics. He earned his Master's degree in 1963 and defended a PhD in 1967 at the Michigan State University (MSU). After that for 13 years he was employed by NASA to work in cryophysics, superconductivity and propulsion systems. In parallel he earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Case Institute of Technology at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio) in 1978.

Trained as a solid-state experimentalist Woollam’s initial interest was in low-temperature physics, superconductors and related materials; however, since the 1980s he turned towards Raman spectroscopy, optical characterization of surfaces and films of technological importance, and more recently to the development and application of ellipsometry to a wide range of biological and industrial problems. Woollam and his group have contributed all over the world to the design, manufacture and installation of ellipsometric instruments at academic and corporate research/production facilities.

Winner of the American Physical Society’s 2013 Industrial Applications of Physics prize for his sustained contributions in ellipsometry especially in extending the applications and in developing modern designs for these instruments;Fellow, American vacuum Society (2006), Honorary Doctorate (2004) Linkoping University, Sweden; Fellow American Physical Society (1981) and a National Research Council Fellow (1967). His contributions in applied optics have received recognition by professional societies. This technique is invaluable in the production of thin films for semiconductor, optoelectronic and magnetic devices.

Amongst Woollam’s other successes are his former students. He has mentored many of them from the early undergraduate days through post graduate education. A cadre of his former mentee’s has remained in the mid-west to form the talent base at the core of J.A. Woollam Co. His scientific associates include Samuel A. Alterovitz, Chu Ching-wu, R.O. Dillon, Timir Datta, Allen Hermann, Bernd Rheinlander, D.J. Sellmyer, M. Schubert and others.

Woollam is married and has two grown daughters.