John E. Thomas

Dr. John E. Thomas joins the faculty in the fall of 2020 as Professor of Engineering Practice in the Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program at UC Boulder, College of Engineering & Applied Science. He brings over 25 years of professional experience including wireless communications, software, semiconductors, defense radar, and consumer electronics industries. John has extensive experience building and leading high-caliber cross-functional product development teams, strategic international partnerships, and diverse technical research programs. He has domestic and international leadership experience in business development, operations, general management (P&L responsibility), and global program/product management in both startup and growth organizations. John is passionate about the promise of sustainable and resilient life experience for future generations. His research interests explore the boundaries of engineering and social science to understand the dynamic relationships between human resilience, psychological development, and the resilience of complex socio-technical systems like critical infrastructure supporting community well-being including energy, water, transportation, communications and cyber-security. Areas of focus include the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions, capacities, and adaptive processes impacting how humans interact with and depend on complex technological systems amid natural / manmade disasters and catastrophic system failures. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of Resilience Engineering Institute—an organization dedicated to the dissemination of resilience knowledge, tools, and resources. Dr. Thomas holds Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara, a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Master of Business Administration, with Honors, from Santa Clara University. In 2017, he earned a Ph.D. in Civil, Environmental, and Sustainable Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.