Thomas F. Kent, Group Leader, Advanced Materials & Devices
What do you like about your job at ARA-BerrieHill?
“The unique environment of ARA-BerrieHill Research gives me the intellectual freedom and organizational support to be able to architect and execute complex interdisciplinary research and development projects which address pressing needs of the warfighter. I enjoy working with the highly motivated and intelligent professionals of the BRC technical staff and our many academic, government and industrial collaborators to rapidly ideate, prototype, and validate smart new solutions to complex customer problems.”
Education
Ph.D. Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University
M.S. Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University
B.A. Physics and Chemistry, Ohio Wesleyan University
Experience
As group leader of BerrieHill Research Division of ARA’s Advanced Materials & Devices Group, Thomas oversees and actively develops a research and development portfolio spanning design and measurement of electro-optic devices and materials to non-destructive evaluation of electronic materials and devices.
As an undergraduate student, he worked as a research assistant for BerrieHill in the computational physics and RF measurement groups, where he performed design, simulation, and measurements of various RF systems. His M.S. and Ph.D. degrees centered in the areas of functional compound semiconductor optoelectronic and magnetic materials and devices. During the course of his graduate work he performed epitaxial growth of III-Nitride compound semiconductor heterostructures, designed, constructed and maintained a state of the art semiconductor characterization laboratory, and developed solid state devices for applications in spintronics and optoelectronics.
He has authored and/or coauthored more than 10 peer reviewed scientific papers in high impact journals such as Applied Physics Letters, Nano Letters and Nanotechnology. His research interests include nondestructive testing using electromagnetic fields, photonics, magnetic materials and devices, thin film growth of functional materials, and development of advanced scientific instrumentation. As a group leader with ARA-BerrieHill, he has successfully overseen three Department of Defense SBIR efforts and a number of large on-site support contracts at the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Learn about other members of the ARA-BerrieHill management team.
