Born in 1934 in Bearsden, Scotland, Thouless earned his undergraduate degree in 1955 from Cambridge University and a doctorate degree in 1958 from Cornell University, where he studied under physicist and Nobel laureate Hans Bethe. Thouless was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, before returning to the United Kingdom to work with world-renowned physicist Rudolf Peierls at the University of Birmingham. At Birmingham, where he was a professor of mathematical physics from 1965 to 1978, Thouless began a pivotal collaboration with Kosterlitz which overturned prevailing theories on how matter behaves in flat, two-dimensional environments. Updated July 2017
David Thouless
Emeritus Professor, Department of Physics, University of Washington
Born in: Scotland
![David Thouless](https://media.carnegie.org/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/4a/ed/4aed00e8-a098-41ef-814c-847ec09ba415/david_thouless.jpg__288x288_q85_crop_subsampling-2_upscale.jpg)
More 2017 Great Immigrants
Jeff SkollFounder and Chairman, Skoll Foundation
Eren OzmenOwner and President, Sierra Nevada Corporation
Nergis MavalvalaProfessor of Astrophysics, MIT
Anthony HopkinsActor
Get the Carnegie Reporter and our best articles delivered to your inbox.