William W. Simmons (born 1932) is an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

at TRW and

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

(LLNL), notable for his development of electro-optical devices.William W. Simmons
at engineering.illinois.edu. Accessed October 1, 2013.

Biography

Simmons received his BA in Physics in 1953 from

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

and his MA in 1955 in Physics from

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

, where in 1960 he also received his PhD in Physics. After graduation he started at Space Technology Labs in the research and development of lasers and other electro-optic devices. Between 1968 and 1971 he returned to the Department of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign working as Associate Professor of electrical engineering. In 1972 he moved on to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where he was project engineer in their new Laser Program. From 1985 till his retirement in 1992 he returned to TRW where he directed the research on "Solid State Lasers and Nonlinear Optics, Superconductive Electronics, and Semiconductor Diode Laser Devices and Arrays research groups." Simmons was awarded the Distinguished Teaching in Engineering Award in 1972 from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was awarded distinguished alumni in 2009 for his "outstanding original research contributions to the development of electro-optical devices, including pulsed ion lasers, very large laser systems, and semiconductor laser arrays, and for his leadership in furthering the national goal of fusion energy generation." In 1987 Simmons was awarded the

IEEE Simon Ramo Medal The IEEE Simon Ramo Medal is an award for exceptional achievement in systems engineering and systems science, and was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 1982. The medal is named for Simon Ramo, one of the founders of the TRW corporati ...

for his "establishment and application of fundamental system design principles to the practical design and construction of very large solid-state laser facilities."IEEE Simon Ramo Medal Recipients
ieee.org/documents. Accessed October 1, 2013.

Selected publications

* William W. Simmons (ed.) ''High power and solid state lasers : 23–24 January 1986, Los Angeles, California''. Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, American Association of Physicists in Medicine. 1986

References

External links

William W. Simmons
at engineering.illinois.edu {{DEFAULTSORT:Simmons, William W. 1932 births Living people 21st-century American physicists Systems engineers Carleton College alumni Grainger College of Engineering alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty