2017 Thomas F. Kelly

Thomas F. Kelly received his B.S. with highest honors in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University in June 1977 and a Ph.D. in Materials Science in December 1981 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from January 1983 until September 2001. Tom was also Director of the Materials Science Center from 1992 to 1999.

While serving as a professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering until September 2001, Tom founded Imago Scientific Instruments to commercialize the Local Electrode Atom Probe, or LEAP. The LEAP is a major advance for atom probe tomography by capturing a three-dimensional atom-by-atom “images” of materials at high speeds and high resolution.

Tom Kelly has been active in the fields of analytical electron microscopy, atom probe microscopy, rapidly solidified materials, and electronic and superconducting materials for over 40 years. He has published over 250 papers and 17 patents in these fields in that time. Tom has driven innovation in instrumentation for atom probe tomography over the past two decades. He continues to pursue microscopy innovations such as atomicscale tomography by developing new detector technologies and combining atom probe tomography with electron microscopy in a single instrument.

Tom was a member of the executive council of the Microscopy Society of America from 2000 to 2002, the International Steering Committee of the International Field Emission Society from 2002 to 2008 and President of the International Field Emission Society from 2006 to 2008. He has served as the inaugural chair of the Microscopy Today Innovation Awards Committee for the Microscopy Society of America since 2010. Tom was an Editor of Microscopy and Microanalysis from 2010 to 2015 and is on the Editorial Board of Microscopy Today. From 2010 to 2012, Tom served on the Council of the Microanalysis Society. In 2012, he was elected President of the Microanalysis Society and served as President from August 2014 to August 2016. He is a fellow of the Microscopy Society of America and the International Field Emission Society.