Thompson is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to artificial intelligence, database management and middleware and a Professor Emeritus in the Computer Science and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He received a B.S. from Stanford in Mathematics in 1971 and an M.A and Ph.D. in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin in 1977 and 1984 respectively. He taught graduate AI and database courses at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, from 1977 to 1981. He was a Senior Member of Technical Staff and a Research Manager in the Central Research Labs at Texas Instruments from 1981 to 1995. He co-founded and served as President of Object Services and Consulting, Inc. (OBJS) from 1995 to 2003. He joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas in July 2003, where he held the Charles Morgan chair. He retired in August 2014 to reinvent himself.