David J. Thouless

David Thouless
Born	David James Thouless (1934-09-21) 21 September 1934 (age 82) Bearsden, Scotland
Residence	United Kingdom
Citizenship	United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Fields	Condensed matter physics
Institutions	University of Washington University of California, Berkeley University of Birmingham Yale University
Alma mater	Trinity Hall, Cambridge (BA) Cornell University (PhD)
Thesis	The application of perturbation methods to the theory of nuclear matter (1958)
Doctoral advisor	Hans Bethe
Notable students	J. Michael Kosterlitz (postdoc)
Known for	Kosterlitz–Thouless transition Thouless energy Topological quantum numbers
Notable awards	Maxwell Medal and Prize (1973) Fellow of the Royal Society (1979) Lars Onsager Prize (2000) Nobel Prize in Physics (2016)
Spouse	Margaret Elizabeth Scrase (m. 1958)
Children	three

David James Thouless FRS (/ˈdeɪvᵻd ˈdʒeɪmz ˈθaʊlɛs/, born 21 September 1934) is a British condensed-matter physicist. He is a winner of the Wolf Prize and laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics along with F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.

Thouless was educated at Winchester College and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He obtained his PhD at Cornell University, where Hans Bethe was his doctoral advisor.

Thouless was a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, the first Director of Studies in Physics at Churchill College, Cambridge in 1961–1965, professor of mathematical physics at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom in 1965-1978, and professor of Applied Science at Yale University from 1979-1980, before becoming a professor of physics at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1980. Thouless has made many theoretical contributions to the understanding of extended systems of atoms and electrons, and of nucleons. His work includes work on superconductivity phenomena, properties of nuclear matter, and excited collective motions within nuclei.