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A Colorado State professor keeps his students busy and lab humming with projects to improve lives and curb pollution.
ryan Willson has established companies to tackle urban smog in Asia, indoor air pollution in the developing world and global warming. So when the 49-year-old says that he entered engineering "to make an impact," you could call that an understatement.
A Colorado State University mechanical engineering professor, Willson is the founder of the CSU Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory, the incubator of his many projects. There, on the Fort Collins, Colo., campus, Willson's students may be experimenting in various corners of the lab with two-stroke motorcycle engines, cookstoves, and equipment for algae farming - all at the same time. "He doesn't do it alone," says CSU engineering dean Sandra Woods, "but he is certainly the center of it all."
These laboratory projects are not just academic exercises. AU are destined for companies spun off from CSU by Willson to commercialize the lab's green...