MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Dr. Greg Thompson, WVU associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.
The honor is the highest professional distinction for academic inventors.
Thompson is the recipient of the CNET Automotive Disruptors of the Year Award, Society of Automotive Engineers Forest R. MacFarland Service Award, SAE Ralph Teetor Educational Award, along with six awards from WVU. He also holds nine U.S. patents that have been licensed to three companies.
“It was within this research conducted through CAFEE that created the environment where lessons would be learned and later applied to the application of the technology used to measure in-use emissions from mobile sources,” Thompson said. “Our initial research provided a building block for commercial systems to measure emissions from mobile systems and ultimately led to the systems utilized to discover the high emitting Volkswagen diesel vehicles.”
Thompson has also developed systems to allow sensors to be deployed through a rear door, eliminating the need to constantly recertify airframes of the C-130 cargo aircraft. Thompson also developed and has a patent for a rotary engine.
“The mechanism that you attach to the rear door and whatever sensors you want to attach you could,”Thompson said,”That could be anything from infared or video, whatever the sensor need might be for the mission.”
Fellows of the Natioanl Academy of Inventors hold more than 41,500 patents that generated more than 11,000 licensed technologies that have created more than 6 million jobs.
Thompson will be formally inducted during an April ceremony in Arizona.