Thomas L. Chester is an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati. He obtained a B.S. degree from Florida State University in 1971. Tom then worked for the Verona Division of the Baychem Corporation (now Bayer) in 1971 and 1972 before resuming his education. In 1976 he received a Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of Florida under the direction of Professor James D. Winefordner. Tom then joined The Procter & Gamble Company where he worked until 2007, most recently as Research Fellow in P&G’s Analytical Global Capability Organization and as Technical Coordinator for P&G’s global HPLC community.

Tom’s research interests revolve around theory-based decision making in separations. This includes the use and further development of theory, materials, and techniques to meet practical needs, and the application of theory and best capabilities to direct problem solving, method development, and understanding in the workplace.

Tom and coworkers developed both theory and numerous capabilities in the fields of HPLC and SFC. Among these are business-goal-focused numerical modeling and optimization for HPLC methods, identifying and mapping parameter interactions in HPLC optimization, automated pH control in HPLC and its use in method development, the first practical flame-ionization detection in SFC, thermodynamic studies of retention in SFC, chemical derivatization of solutes for SFC, a flow-injection method for mapping critical loci in binary fluid mixtures, retention-gap injection for quantitative open-tubular SFC, selectivity tuning with temperature and pressure in SFC, and the phase-diagram perspective of unified chromatography.

Tom received the Keene P. Dimick Award in Chromatography at the 1994 Pittsburgh Conference and has also received several regional awards. He has published 76 papers, given over 120 presentations, and co-edited the book Unified Chromatography. He was President of Supercritical Conferences, a not-for-profit educational corporation. Tom also served as Chair of the Chromatography and Separations Chemistry Subdivision of the ACS Analytical Division, and as Trea

surer of the Tri-State Supercritical Fluids Group. He served on committees and task groups for ACS, ASTM, and The Chemical Research Council. He collaborated in organizing six international scientific meetings and twenty additional symposia, workshops, and training events.  Tom currently serves on editorial advisory boards of the Journal of Chromatography A and The Journal of Liquid Chromatography, and previously served on various boards of Analytical Chemistry, Instrumentation Science and Technology, The Journal of High Resolution Chromatography and Chromatography Communications, The Journal of Microcolumn Separations, The Journal of Supercritical Fluids, and The Journal of Separation Science.