Brian Thomas

Professor Thomas joined Mines in 2015 as a Professor in the Mechanical Engineering department. He received his B.Eng. from McGill University and his PhD from the University of British Columbia, both in Metallurgical Process Engineering. His research is primarily in the field of metals processing and focuses on the computational modeling of the continuous casting of steel and related processes.

By combining the results of his computational model calculations with laboratory experiments, metallographic analysis and measurements on operating commercial casters, he has generated fundamental knowledge about how the continuous casting process works, how defects form, and how quality can be improved.

Prior to joining Mines, Professor Thomas led the Metals Processing Simulation Laboratory in the Mechanical Science and Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is the C.J. Gauthier Professor Emeritus, Research Professor, and Director of the Continuous Casting Consortium (CCC). After moving to the Mines campus, the CCC has been renamed the Continuous Casting Center.