Robert Thompson completed his B.Sc. at the University of British Columbia before moving on to graduate school at the University of Toronto, receiving his doctorate in 1994. Prior to completion of his graduate work, he spent time at the University of Electrocommunications in Chofu, Japan as a short-term visiting scientist. Following his graduate work, he held a staff scientist position at the Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics (near Munich, Germany) and was a Post-Doctoral-Fellow at Rice University (Houston, Texas). He took up a faculty position in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Calgary in 1998, receiving promotion to Associate Professor in 2003. He served the Department as Chair of the Graduate Program from 2003 through 2007, and has been Assistant Head of Department and Undergraduate Program Director since 2007.

Dr. Thompson's research interests currently focuses on trapped-ion physics of atoms, molecules, and exotic species, with particular interest in ion-ion and ion-neutral collision, ion heating, and sympathetic cooling processes. He is a founding member of ALPHA-Canada, the Canadian component of the Anti-hydrogen Laser PHysics Apparatus (ALPHA) Collaboration, which is pursuing the generation, storage, and spectroscopic study of anti-hydrogen at the Anti-proton Decelerator (AD) facility at CERN. His research group currently includes 4 doctoral students and a Post-Doctoral researcher in Physics Education Research, an area of particular interest to him. He was awarded the CAP Medal for Excellence in Teaching in 2007. He served as Associate Editor for Experimental Atomic and Molecular Physics of the Canadian Journal of Physics from 2007-2007 and has been a member of the Editorial Board of Physics in Canada since 2008.

Dr. Thompson has been a member of the CAP for over 20 years and is currently the Chair of the Division of Physics Education (DPE) and the Secretary-Treasurer of the Division of Atomic & Molecular Physics and Photon Interactions (DAMPhi). He chaired the 2007 Joint DAMOP (APS) - DAMPhi (CAP) Conference local organizing committee, and has served on several program and organizing committees for national and international meetings. He has been a Canadian member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Commission C15 on Atomic and Molecular Physics since 2005. He was an external reviewer for the Ontario Council of Graduate Schools and for the Alberta Ingenuity Fund Graduate Scholarship program, and was the CAP representative for Education and Ethics Roundtables at the 2nd Canadian-American-Mexican Physics Graduate Student Conference in San Diego in 2005.