Department of Physics
The Purdue Department of Physics is proud to have been associated with a large number of quality scientists over nearly a century as students, faculty or staff. Among them are such illustrious people as Julian S. Schwinger (Purdue faculty in 1940's, Nobel Prize 1965) and Ben Roy Mottelson (BS Purdue 1947, Nobel Prize 1975).
These pages are intended as both a tribute to our alums as well as an inspiration to our students. Here you will find our stories about our Distinguished Alumni, reports of recent alumni events, and the results of an alumni survey. The survey was designed to provide a link between our alums and our students. If you have not contributed to the survey, we encourage you to do so. Be sure to come back often to keep up to date on Purdue Physics Alumni.
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Dr. Thomas Longo received his MS in Physics from Purdue in 1953, then his PhD in Physics in 1957 while doing silcon research with Dr.
Karl Lark-Horovitz. He went on to a successful career in silicon research and development for Sylvania Semiconductor and Fairchild
Semiconductor before forming his own company, Performance Semiconductor, in 1985 to develop submicron CMOS technology and microprocessors
for military application. Dr. Longo retired in 2003 after 50 years of continuous silicon activities.
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Dr. Tournear is a program manager for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Tactical Technology
Office where he manages one of the largest portfolios in the agency.
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