In Memoriam: E. Thomas Strom, longtime adjunct professor in chemistry

Thursday, Nov 14, 2024 • Greg Pederson :

The University of Texas at Arlington chemistry community lost a dear friend and colleague with the passing of Edwin Thomas “Tom” Strom on October 26, 2024 at age 88.

Dr. Strom spent more than 40 years as a visiting and adjunct professor in the UTA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He also worked for more than three decades as a research chemist with Mobil Oil Co. Additionally, he was heavily involved in the American Chemical Society (ACS), serving in many roles in the ACS Dallas-Fort Worth Section and the ACS Division of the History of Chemistry.

“Tom Strom was a wonderful person and a true all-rounder — a dedicated scientist, an inspiring teacher, a gifted writer, and a committed public servant,” said Rasika Dias, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “His contributions to our department and the wider chemical community were substantial. Passionate and active in his research until the end, Tom inspired all who knew him. He will be deeply missed.”

His research interests included polymer chemistry, physical organic chemistry, applications of magnetic resonance to chemistry, molecular modeling, substituent effects, the study of anion radicals by electron spin resonance spectroscopy, and molecular orbital theory.

“Tom was a wonderful colleague and a true gentleman,” said Purnendu “Sandy” Dasgupta, the Hamish Small Chair in Ion Analysis Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “He always had a smile on his face and always had time, especially to talk about the history of chemistry. When I first came to UTA as chair, he was invaluable to me with his advice. He saw the department from a different perspective than a regular faculty member who had climbed up the usual academic ladder.

“I should be remiss if I do not note how much Charlotte and Tom were in love with each other, It was particularly difficult for Tom when she was ill for a long period. For someone who never officially became a ‘regular’ member of the faculty, no one has given more of himself to this department than Tom. I miss running into him in the front office, making silly jokes. I miss his smile; I just miss him!”

Strom was born June 11, 1936, in Des Moines, Iowa. He ranked first in his high school class and earned a merit scholarship to the University of Iowa, where he received a B.S. in Chemistry in 1958. It was there that he met his future wife, Charlotte Faye (Williams) Strom. After getting married he and Charlotte moved to California, where he earned an M.S. in Nuclear Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961.

He enrolled in the doctoral program at Iowa State University and earned a Ph.D. in Physical Organic Chemistry in 1964. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and began working as an organic chemist at the U.S. Army Natick Laboratory in Natick, Mass., while serving as a first lieutenant. Strom left the Army in 1966 and after moving nine times in nine years, he and his wife moved to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, where they remained for the rest of their lives. Strom began work as a senior research chemist in petroleum geochemistry in the Dallas lab of Mobil Oil Co.

Over the next three decades, Strom held many positions with Mobil, including project leader, underground coal recovery; senior research chemist, production mechanics; project leader, profile control technical service for Saudi Aramco; and senior staff chemist, well production, Mobil Exploration and Producing Technical Center (MEPTEC) in Farmers Branch. He retired from Mobil in 1995. As a researcher, he had around 50 publications, and he held 25 U.S. patents and numerous foreign patents.

Strom also had a desire to teach chemistry to new generations of students. Well before he retired from Mobil, he started teaching part-time as a lecturer in organic chemistry, first at Dallas Baptist University (1969-70), then at El Centro Community College (now Dallas College, El Centro Campus, 1970-72), and at UT Dallas in 1974, while still working full-time at Mobil with all the responsibilities of a senior scientist.

He came to UTA in 1978 and began teaching organic chemistry at the undergraduate level and polymer chemistry at the graduate level. He must have felt he had found his academic home — he had a love for polymer chemistry and at the time a number of UTA faulty were interested in polymers, especially conducting polymers. Further, in 1977, Richard Timmons, a notable faculty member who passed away in 2022, had joined UTA as chair and led the department in forming its Ph.D. program.

Although UTA was much further away than the other institutions from his home in Dallas, Strom made it his academic home. He took early retirement from Mobil and became an adjunct professor at UTA in 1995, and he continued teaching until retiring in 2020. Even after his retirement, in the week before he left for a much-deserved vacation trip with his daughter Laura, he was trying to use an electron paramagnetic resonance spectrum to solve a riddle that he said had bugged him forever.

With the ACS D-FW Section, Strom served as membership chair, director, councilor, chair, and awards chair. He was also editor for over 27 years of The Southwest Retort, an ACS regional publication for which he wrote many articles, book reviews and editorials. He received the ACS D-FW Section’s prestigious W.T. Doherty Award in 1989 for significant contributions to chemistry. In 2009 Strom was named to the inaugural class of ACS Fellows.

He served as chair of the ACS Division of the History of Chemistry in 2011-12 and co-organized six division symposia that resulted in ACS Symposium volumes. He was a mentor to many members of the division’s executive committee and presented talks at division sessions at national meetings.

Strom was co-editor of six books on the history of chemistry: 100 Plus Years of Plastics: Leo Baekeland and Beyond; Pioneers of Quantum Chemistry; The Foundations of Physical Organic Chemistry: 50 Years of the James Flack Norris Award; The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Volume 1: Correcting the Errors and Oversights of the Nobel Prize Committee; The Posthumous Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Volume 2: Ladies in Waiting for the Nobel Prize; and Pioneers of Magnetic Resonance. For the last five of those books, he wrote or co-wrote chapters on famous chemists. At the time of his death, he was book review editor for the journal Bulletin for the History of Chemistry.

Strom was preceded in death by his wife of 65 years, Charlotte Strom, on August 14, 2023, and his son, Eric Strom, on May 28, 2024. Eric was a geologist, specializing in hydrology, and worked for the U.S. Geological Survey.

He is survived by his daughter, Laura Strom, and her husband, Mark Stackpole; his son’s wife, Kathy Strom; grandchildren Sven Dickinson, Karin Dickinson, Thor Dickinson, Michelle Strom, and Diana Gao Dickinson; step-grandson Evan Stackpole; great-granddaughter, Nohea'mani Charlotte Norman-Dickinson, and great-grandson, Jace Akua Norman-Dickinson.

A graveside service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 4 at Dallas National Cemetery, 2000 Mountain Creek Pkwy, Dallas. A Celebration of Life service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, at Oak Cliff Presbyterian Church, 6000 S. Hampton Rd., Dallas.

Strom’s family and UTA have started a fundraising initiative to support scholarships for students in the UTA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, ensuring that Dr. Strom’s dedication to education continues to inspire future generations. Donations can be made at give.uta.edu/strom.

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