David J. Thomson
Encyclopedia
Dr. David J. Thomson is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and a Canada Research Chair in Statistics and Signal Processing. He is a Professional Engineer
in the province of Ontario, a Fellow of the IEEE, a Chartered Statistician
and Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society
, a Member of the American Statistical Association
and the American Geophysical Union
and a 2009 Killam Fellow (administered through the Canada Council for the Arts).
He is best known for creation of the multitaper method of spectral estimation, first published in complete form in 1982 in a special issue of Proceedings of the IEEE
. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on topics as broad as space physics
, climatology and paleoclimatology, statistics
, and global warming
. It was his 1995 paper that first conclusively showed the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature.
in 1965, where he was assigned to work on the WT4 Millimeter Waveguide System and the Advanced Mobile Phone Service project. In 1983 he was reassigned to the Communications Analysis Research Department where he remained as a Distinguished Member until his retirement in 2001. During this time period he was
Upon his retirement from Bell Labs, Dr. Thomson took a Canada Research Chair at Queen's University at Kingston, where he has remained to this date.
Professional Engineer
Regulation of the engineering profession is established by various jurisdictions of the world to protect the safety, well-being and other interests of the general public, and to define the licensure process through which an engineer becomes authorized to provide professional services to the...
in the province of Ontario, a Fellow of the IEEE, a Chartered Statistician
Chartered statistician
Chartered Statistician is a professional qualification in statistics offered by the Royal Statistical Society in the United Kingdom...
and Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...
, a Member of the American Statistical Association
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association , is the main professional US organization for statisticians and related professions. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest, continuously operating professional society in the United States...
and the American Geophysical Union
American Geophysical Union
The American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics...
and a 2009 Killam Fellow (administered through the Canada Council for the Arts).
He is best known for creation of the multitaper method of spectral estimation, first published in complete form in 1982 in a special issue of Proceedings of the IEEE
Proceedings of the IEEE
The Proceedings of the IEEE is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers...
. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on topics as broad as space physics
Space physics
Space physics, also known as space plasma physics, is the study of plasmas as they occur naturally in the universe. As such, it encompasses a far-ranging number of topics, including the sun, solar wind, planetary magnetospheres and ionospheres, auroras, cosmic rays, and synchrotron radiation...
, climatology and paleoclimatology, statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
, and global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. It was his 1995 paper that first conclusively showed the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature.
Career
David Thomson joined the Technical Staff at Bell LabsBell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
in 1965, where he was assigned to work on the WT4 Millimeter Waveguide System and the Advanced Mobile Phone Service project. In 1983 he was reassigned to the Communications Analysis Research Department where he remained as a Distinguished Member until his retirement in 2001. During this time period he was
- a Member of the Panel on Sensors and Electron Devices of the Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board
- Chairman of Commission C of USNC-URSI
- Associate editor for Radio Science
- Associate editor for Communications Theory and for Detection and Estimation of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
- Adjunct professor in the Graduate Department of Scripps Institution of Oceanography
- Consulted at the Neurological Institute of Columbia University
- Visiting Professor at Princeton University (statistical inference)
- Visiting Professor at Stanford University (time series)
- Guest Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (the Houghton lectures)
- Participant at the Isaac Newton Institute at the University of Cambridge.
Upon his retirement from Bell Labs, Dr. Thomson took a Canada Research Chair at Queen's University at Kingston, where he has remained to this date.