Thomas Sanford received his Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman in 1972. Following his graduation, he conducted high-energy physics experiments at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England, the CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) Laboratory in Switzerland, and the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, participating in the discovery of the charm quark. In 1982, he joined Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico as a senior member of technical staff, and became a distinguished member in 1991, where he engineered a break-through in the physics of Z-pinches, opening wire arrays as possible drivers for inertial confinement fusion. In 2000, he became a fellow of the American Physical Society and in 2005 was awarded the Hannes Alfven Prize by the European Physical Society. He is retired from the Sandia National Laboratories, and currently lives in Albuquerque.