Thomas is the Allan & Myra Ferguson Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware (UD) with a joint appointment in Materials Science & Engineering. He is Director of the Center for Research in Soft matter & Polymers (CRiSP), Director of the new NSF MRSEC at UD called CHARM (Center for Hybrid, Active, and Responsive Materials) and Deputy Director of the new DOE EFRC at UD called CPI (Center for Plastics Innovation). He joined UD in 2006 after a stint as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at NIST. His research interests include nanostructured assemblies for targeted drug delivery and gene therapy, polymeric materials for bio-separation and ion-conduction membranes, nanostructured soft materials from biobased and plastics waste feedstocks, and polymer films for nanotemplating. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2017, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2018, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2021, and a Fellow of the Polymers Division of the American Chemical Society in 2021. Thomas is also co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Lignolix, Inc. – a start-up company focused on the valorization of biomass waste.