Thomas Jourdan, Ph.D.

At the end of 2006, Thomas Jourdan, Ph.D., retired from his position as a Supervisory Special Agent in the FBI to undertake two positions at UCO, those positions being assistant director of the Forensic Science Institute (FSI) and a professor of chemistry.  Over the course of his career in the FBI, in addition to being a field agent and later an FBI Laboratory forensic examiner in the areas of chemistry and toxicology, he participated in a number of bombing investigations, to include Pan Am 103, the World Trade Center, Atlanta’s Olympic Park, UNABOM, Oklahoma City, and the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi U.S. Embassies, organizing the Bureau’s response to the latter two events as the Chief of the explosives unit. For his last assignment in the FBI, he was stationed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 6 years and served as the interface between the FBI and the Department of Energy’s national laboratory complex for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) issues, nuclear forensics, forensic casework matters, and special projects.

In his role as a consultant to INTERPOL and the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), since his arrival at UCO, Jourdan has participated in IAEA or INTERPOL projects in Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada (2), China(2), Cuba, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Ghana, India (3), Jordan, Malaysia (2), Morocco (2), Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Singapore (2), South Africa (2), South Korea, Thailand, Ukraine (2), and Vietnam. He regularly instructs courses in the chemistry department in the areas of nuclear chemistry and organic chemistry, and at the FSI on WMD Forensics, Forensic Chemistry, Forensic Toxicology, Forensic Pharmacology, and Investigation of Clandestine Laboratories. His publications and research interests parallel the courses he instructs. In January 2019, Jourdan stepped down from his role as the assistant director of the FSI.
He continues to teach his chemistry and forensic science courses.