After a 38-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, Jean Tom has embarked on an academic career as a teaching faculty. She joined the Princeton faculty as a Professor of Practice in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in September 2024. Previously, she was the 2024 Brenton Halsey Distinguished Visiting Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia. Jean recently retired from Bristol Myers Squibb, where she served as Executive Director of Development Engineering - Chemistry Process Development. In this role, she led a group of chemical engineers focused on developing chemical processes to synthesize small-molecule drug candidates for new therapeutics. Before joining BMS in 2006, Jean spent 19 years at Merck Research Laboratories. In her industrial role, Jean introduced new approaches to accelerate the generation of process knowledge needed at different stages of development and promoted pre-competitive collaboration to advance new technologies for developing new compounds.

As a 1993 Ph.D. graduate alumna, Jean is interested in helping Princeton students (both graduate and undergraduate) attain skills to help them be effective in the workplace. Her goal is to translate her experience into useful knowledge for students. Her area of interests includes the following:

• Pharmaceutical process development and crystallization processes

• Industrial examples applying fundamentals of chemical engineering and process safety.

• Leadership, team dynamics, communications styles and bias management concepts and application of these concepts to the technical and engineering work environment.

• The role of imposter phenomenon for women in engineering and science