Prior to joining Virginia Tech as Dean of Engineering in 2003-2005 Aref was Head of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for a decade from 1992-2003.
Before that he was on the faculty of University of California, San Diego, split between the Department of Applied Mechanics and Engineering Science and the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics 1985-1992.
He was Associate Editor of Journal of Fluid Mechanics 1984-94, founding editor with David Crighton of Cambridge Texts in Applied Mathematics, and served on the editorial board of Theoretical and Computational Fluid Dynamics and as co-editor of Advances in Applied Mechanics.
He has also authored chapters in several books, edited two collections of papers, and given presentations at conferences and universities around the world.
He chaired the US National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and has served on advisory boards for several professional societies.