William T. Plummer received his PhD in Physics from The Johns Hopkins University in 1965.

After earning his degree he served as a Captain in the US Army Signal Corps, then taught Astronomy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In 1969 he joined Polaroid, and he soon worked with Dr. Edwin H. Land and Dr. James G. Baker to create the remarkable SX-70 folding instant SLR camera.

Plummer has been awarded 102 US Patents for inventions in visual, photographic, and technical optical systems: spanning lens designs, innovative components, optomechanical devices, instrumentation, electronics, and chemistry. He has published professional papers in optics, astronomy, acoustics, and other fields. He has given illustrated technical talks before university, scientific, industrial, government, and commercial groups in several countries.

Plummer is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is a recipient of the David Richardson Medal for applied optics and the Joseph Fraunhofer Award/Robert M. Burley Prize for optical engineering. He is a recipient of the Steve Benton Memorial Award from the New England Section of the OSA. He is a Fellow of the Society, SPIE, and the National Speleological Society. He and his group received a Photonics Spectra Circle of Excellence Award and an R&D 100 Award for a video-rate photon tunneling microscope.

Plummer is President of WTP Optics, Inc.