Originally from the Midwest, Thomas Ward’s academic pursuits and research interests have taken him from coast to coast. Now settled into his assistant professor position in the aerospace engineering department at Iowa State, he says it feels good to be back in 
the area of the country he has always considered home.
Ward began his education in chemical engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla. While completing his undergrad degree, he took advantage of two internship opportunities, spending one summer in Columbia, Missouri, as a projects engineering intern in the electronic products division at 3M.
Over the course of a following summer, Ward again served as an intern, this time at Brewer Science in Rolla. He continued this internship throughout the school year, working with soft lithography processes to produce the color green in LCD screens for a specific manufacturer.
He stayed on the chemical engineering path, earning his master’s degree from Stanford University, but switched things up when he earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering at the University of California.
Although Ward entered a new field, he says he felt his former research and work was still closely related.
“Research is diverse, so my studies fit into more than just the field of mechanical engineering,” says Ward. “I have focused a lot on fluid mechanics, which can be looked at in chemical, mechanical, and aerospace engineering.”
From 2003 until 2005, he served as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, where he focused on microfluidics and heat transfer. He worked with many pioneers in these fields and spent time creating microfluidic devices, doing everything from developing ways to pump fluid through the devices to manufacturing them. His work there, sponsored by Unilever, allowed him to spend two weeks in the United Kingdom where he attended a corporate retreat.
Ward decided to stay in academia the following year and began working at the University of California, Los Angeles, as a postdoctoral researcher and adjunct faculty assistant in the math department.
“I was an experimentalist in the math department,” he recalls. “I looked at particle Jaden thin film flows, which are basically models for landslides. This topic is something that is very important in California, so the more we were able to understand about it the better.”
Ward spent the last four years at North Carolina University, working in the school’s mechanical and aerospace engineering department. At Iowa State, he will be continuing some research he began in North Carolina as well as looking to collaborate with others on campus.
“For the most part, I will be working on potential flow,” Ward explains. “There are some problems in fluid mechanics and microscale flows that deal with theory related to potential flow. For example, one problem is CO2 sequestration, which involves looking for other processes that allow us to contain CO2 underground.”
Working with two graduate students who came with him from North Carolina, Ward will also explore research with heat transfer, using fluid devices as a way to mitigate heat that comes from gas turbines. He is also teaching an aerodynamics course.
“I’m looking forward to performing my research here,” he says. “I think this is a department that has a lot going for it, and it’s forward thinking. Nowadays as most universities tend to be cutting back, it’s good to see a department that is really expanding, and it looks like there are really no plans to stop. That’s exciting for me.”