Forty Under 40: Corey Thompson

Corey Thompson left his hometown in east Texas in 2005 to accept an academic scholarship offer from the University of Arkansas.

Nine years later, he had three UA degrees — a B.S. in mechanical engineering (2009), an M.S. in mechanical engineering (2011) and a Ph.D. in microelectronics and photonics (2014).

Thompson stayed in Northwest Arkansas and started a company to commercialize the technology based on his doctoral research. Utilizing advanced chemistry, WattGlass produced anti-reflective glass coatings for solar panels and lighting fixtures using a proprietary nanoparticle coating.

Under Thompson’s leadership, WattGlass added customers in the U.S., Europe and China and has near-term opportunities in India. The company has also been awarded more than $3 million in grants. Funders were both domestic and international.

In April, WattGlass merged with Pellucere Technologies. The company was spun out of research at Oregon State University but is now headquartered in Houston.

“It’s a lot of the same technology, but we weren’t competitors,” he said. “We’re in different spaces in the [solar] market. It’s absolutely a great thing.”

Now known as Pellucere, the company will keep its research center in Fayetteville and plans to add jobs, Thompson said, noting that providing job opportunities to retain Ph.D.-level talent in the state is essential to him.

Thompson is passionate about technology transfer from research labs to commercialization and regularly volunteers to support other early-stage founders.

“I would love to be able to do that again in my lifetime,” he said. “It may not be in this same space, but I can see staying involved in early-stage technology development.”