Thomas Flynn Edgar (born April 17, 1945) is an American chemical engineer. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2014 for contributions to mathematical modeling, optimization, and automatic control of chemical and microelectronics processes, and for professional leadership. Edgar is the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Chair in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Education Edgar received his B.S. in chemical engineering in 1967 from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1971 from Princeton University. Edgar worked briefly as a process engineer with the Continental Oil Company before joining the UT's chemical engineering faculty in 1971. He served as Department Chair of Chemical Engineering (1985-93), Associate Dean of Engineering (1993-96), and Associate Vice President for Academic Computing (1996-2001) at UT-Austin. In 2012 he became the Director of the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute. Academic career Edgar’s academic work has focused on process modeling, control, and optimization. He has published over 500 articles and book chapters in the above fields applied to separations, chemical reactors, energy systems, and semiconductor manufacturing. He has supervised the research of over 45 M.S. and 80 Ph.D. students. He also co-directs the Texas-Wisconsin-California Control Consortium which involves 13 companies and four universities. Edgar authored the textbook Coal Processing and Pollution Control Technology (Gulf Publishing, 1983), and co-authored the textbooks Optimization of Chemical Processes (McGraw-Hill, 2001) and Process Dynamics and Control (Wiley, 2010). The first edition of Process Dynamics and Control received the 1990 American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Meriam-Wiley Award as the top engineering textbook, and the book (now in its third edition) is used at over 60 universities in the U.S. He was the lead author for the Process Control section for the last two editions of Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook. Edgar served as Chair of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers' (AIChE) Computing and Systems Technology Division in 1986. He was President of the Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering Education (CACHE) Corporation from 1981 to 1984 and has served as Executive Director of CACHE since 2001. He was President of the American Automatic Control Council between 1989 and 1991, which oversees the control activities of eight U.S. professional societies. He is board secretary of Pecan Street, Inc. (Austin, TX), which deals with renewable energy and smart grids, and also served on the ABET Board of Directors (2011-2013)