Wiggins, T. A. (Thomas Arthur), 1921-2003

Thomas Arthur Wiggins was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on February 24, 1921. He graduated from Penn State (B.S. science education, 1942), and served in the U. S. Army from 1945 to 1946. He attended George Washington University (M.S., 1949). That year he returned to Penn State for doctoral studies and joined the Penn State faculty, achieving the rank of professor in 1963. Wiggins was a member of the Optical Society of America and of the American Physical Society. He participated in research on infrared spectroscopy, frequency mixing, light polarization, and nonlinear thermal scattering in liquids and gases. He authored more than 130 articles in scientific journals. In 1983 he was the recipient of the C. I. Noll Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in the College of Science. Dr. Wiggins retired as professor emeritus in 1986, and died in 2003.