Joe Thomas, associate dean for academic affairs and the Nicholas H. Noyes Professor of Manufacturing in Cornell's Johnson School, has been named interim dean for the Johnson School, effective July 1. He will succeed Robert Swieringa, who will step down at the end of his second five-year term June 30 and return to the Johnson School's accounting faculty following a sabbatical leave.

"Having already served the Johnson School as an exemplary associate dean, Joe Thomas is universally respected for his broad experience, thoughtfulness and good judgment," said Cornell Provost Carolyn A. "Biddy" Martin. "We are very grateful that he has agreed to act as interim dean while we complete the search for the next dean of the Johnson School. The school will not stand still under his interim leadership."

In his current role, Thomas has helped grow the Johnson School tenure and tenure-track faculty by 54 percent in the last decade to meet growing demands for MBA and Executive MBA programs. He is a two-time winner of the Russell Distinguished Teaching Award and has consulted for and been involved in management-education programs for several companies. He has served the Johnson School as director of the doctoral program and of executive education, and at the university level as the chair of the Academic Leadership Series and of the Financial Policies Committee, among other administrative assignments.

Thomas' publications have dealt with manufacturing management, forecasting, work-sharing systems and the effect of marketing decisions on production planning. A Cornell faculty member since 1967, his current research interests involve models for managing complex production-distribution systems and the ways in which these can be implemented effectively.

Thomas holds a B.S. (1964) in chemical engineering from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and a Ph.D. (1968) in operations research from Yale University.