Dr. Stopa receieved his B.A. for Astronomy from Wesleyan University in 1976. He was a Research and Teaching Assistant at Harvard University from 1977 to 1980. He completed his M.S. from the University of Maryland in 1982. He was a real time computer programmer at the System Development Corporation from 1982 to 1985. He worked with the Das Sarma Research Group at the University of Maryland from 1986 to 1990. He received his Ph. D. in 1990. From 1990 to 1992, he worked in the NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Tarucha group Riken. He collaborated with the Frontier Research Project from 1992 to 1997. He worked with the Walter Schottky Institute from 1998 to 1999. From 2000 to 2004, he was with the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technologies (ERATO), Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST), Tarucha Mesoscopic Correlaton Project.
He is currently the director of the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network Computation Project (NNIN/C) and a member of the Physics Department at Harvard University.