Tommy Ahlgren started 1993 as a research assistant at the old physics department at Siltavuorenpenger. He received his MSc 1995 and PhD in physics 1998 at the University of Helsinki. He got university lecturer position 2001. Between 2003 - 2005 he was appointed professor, locum tenens. As a lecturer, has taught more than 80 courses of which 19 are different courses, including high level courses Analytical Mechanics, Scientific Computing III, and Quantum Mechanics.

He does experimental research and simulations in the field of material physics, and has published more than 200 publications in international research journals (about 6000 citations, h-index 36).