Jules Thibault obtained his bachelor of chemical engineering at the Royal Military College in 1973. He later obtained a PhD in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University in 1978 where he worked on the topic of heat transfer in nuclear reactors.
Following his PhD Professor Thibault spent four years in the Canadian Armed Forces, including two six-month postings to Egypt and Cyprus with the United Nations. From 1981 to 1984, he taught in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Royal military College, after which time he joined the Department of Chemical Engineering of Laval University. In 2000, he moved to the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Ottawa. His research interests are in biochemical engineering, and process simulation, control and optimization.