[2] In 1896, he became a colleague of English physicist J. J. Thomson at Cambridge University, and performed one of the earliest measurements of the electron's charge.

He was awarded his Doctor of Science degree from London in 1900, and was elected Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1901.

In 1909, he accepted a role as professor of physics at McGill University in Montreal in Canada, staying there three years.

He joined the Rice Institute located in Houston, Texas in 1912, becoming the first chair of the physics department.

[2] In 1925, he returned to Rice University in Houston (also working as a consultant to an oil company) and continued there until retiral in 1947.