Harvard University Department of Physics

David Norcross graduated from Harvard College with a B.A. in physics, and earned an M.Sc. degree in physics from the University of Illinois.  He spent two years as a research scientist for the Sperry Rand Research Corporation, and joined the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) as a postdoctoral fellow in 1970.  JILA is a cooperative enterprise of the Quantum Physics Division (QPD) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado in Boulder.  He joined the scientific staff  of the QPD in 1974, was elected a Fellow of JILA in 1976, and served as the institute's Chairman in 1983-1984.  In 1989 he became the chief of the QPD.  He was appointed Director of NIST's Boulder Laboratories in 1994.  As Director, Norcross was responsible for the 200 acre Boulder Dept. of Commerce site, and provided technical oversight and administrative support to NIST's Boulder research programs.  His responsibilities were expanded in 1996 to include both space allocation and long-range facilities development and budget planning for all of NIST's physical plant in Boulder and Gaithersburg, Maryland.  Norcross retired from federal service In April 2000.  He is the author of more than 70 publications on atomic and molecular structure, electron collisions, and photoabsorption and photodetachment by atomic systems.  He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of Sigma Xi.  He received a Bronze Medal from the National Bureau of Standards in 1982, and Silver Medals from the Department of Commerce in 1994 and 2000.