PETER M. A. SHERWOOD is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oklahoma State University. He serves a college of 24 departments covering the Fine Arts, the Humanities, the Social Sciences and the Sciences. His academic background is in the area of chemistry, and as well as being Dean he serves as a Professor of Chemistry with a research program concerned with surface chemistry. His research group has been involved in surface analysis (especially X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) of materials with particular interest in electrode surfaces, corrosion systems, and carbon fiber and composite surfaces. The work is an example of how basic chemistry can be applied to analyze and understand important practical problems, many of which have a direct relevance to industry. He has authored or coauthored more than 200 publications.

Peter Sherwood received a first class honours B.Sc. degree from St. Andrews University in Scotland and the Forrester Prize and Irvine Jubilee Medal (best undergraduate performance in chemistry). He was a graduate student at Cambridge University in England receiving an M.A. and Ph.D. degree in 1970. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and a Fellow of the AVS–Science and Technology Society. His contributions were acknowledged by the award of a University Distinguished Professorship at Kansas State University in 1997 and the conferring of the degree of Sc.D. by the University of Cambridge in the U.K. in 1995.

He joined the faculty at Cambridge as a Fellow of Downing College and Salters Company Fellow in 1970. Sherwood left Cambridge to start work on surface science at Newcastle University in 1972. He left Newcastle University as a Senior Lecturer in 1985 to join the faculty at Kansas State University, where he served until 2004 as a faculty member. He was Head of the Chemistry Department from 1997 to 2004 and is currently a University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry.

Sherwood served as a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of California at Berkeley in 1976, a Visiting Professor at the University of Bari (Italy) in 1984, a Visiting Scientist at Kodak in 1986 and at the CSIRO National Measurement Laboratory (Sydney, Australia) in 1987. In 1990–1991 he served as Program Officer for Analytical and Surface Chemistry at the National Science Foundation. He received an Outstanding Performance Award for his service to NSF during this time. He received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Department Head from Kansas State University in 2003. Sherwood is an Associate Editor of Surface Science Spectra journals, and is on the editorial board of Carbon and Surface and Interface Analysis. He is currently Treasurer of the Applied Surface Science Division and served on the Board of Directors of the AVS–Science and Technology Society from 1999–2000.

Sherwood started as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences on July 1, 2004.