University of Missouri, Rolla
Gary Thomas became chancellor of the University of Missouri-Rolla on September 1, 2000.
As chancellor, Thomas oversees all academic and administrative operations of the 5,000-student campus. He reports to UM President Manuel Pacheco and the Board of Curators, who oversee the four-campus University of Missouri System.
Thomas served as provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark from 1990 to 1998. NJIT is the largest technological university in the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area. In addition to administering a $40 million research program, he built teams able to win research grants and contracts.
While at NJIT, Thomas held several other administrative positions, including vice president for academic affairs, a post he held from 1980 to 1990. Also while at NJIT, he helped form the school’s College of Science and Liberal Arts (where he served as the first dean), the School of Management, and the Dorman Honors College.
Prior to joining NJIT, Thomas served in several academic and administrative posts at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Those posts included chair of electrical engineering, associate dean of the graduate school, and chair for the Energy Technology Laboratory. He also was given a gubernatorial appointment to the Student Assistance Board of the state of New Jersey, and was a member of the Licensure Approval and Accreditation Board for the New Jersey Department of Higher Education.
Thomas has served on several prestigious boards in such capacities as chairperson for the Public Service Electric & Gas Research Advisory Committee, chair of the Board of Directors of the Transportation Research Consortium, and chair of the board of Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research & Education Corp.
In addition to his long and varied tenure as an administrator, Thomas has conducted extensive research, successfully generating millions of dollars in research funding to support his projects. He participated in an energy conservation study for the Stony Brook campus. He was a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Fellow Program. As a project director for the federal Office of Technology Assessment, Thomas led an assessment of National Materials Information System policy.
Thomas is an author and co-editor of the three-volume Fundamentals Handbook of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and has contributed to many other books and publications, including Applied Physics, Physical Review, and Solid State Electronics.
A native of California, he earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley in 1960. He earned his master’s degree in physics at UC-Berkeley in 1962 and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science at the same institution in 1967.
Thomas’s wife, Dr. Barbara Tedesco, is associate dean of the School of Management at NJIT. They have three grown children.
Thomas’ hobbies include gardening and other outdoor activities, and movies. Among his favorite filmmakers are Akira Kurosawa and Francois Truffaut.
The Center for College Health and Safety
is a project of Health and Human Development
Programs,
a division of EDC.