People

People

Dr. William E. Lear, Jr

Associate Professor Emeritus (Department Time: 1984 – 2023)
Address Office NEB 425 Phone: (352) 392-7572 Fax: (352) 392-1071

Biography

Dr. William. E. Lear is an Associate Fellow of AIAA, recipient of the 2014 Energy Systems Award from AIAA, former Chair of the Terrestrial Energy Systems technical committee, and has served in multiple roles with the International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, including Technical Program Chair. His areas of research are novel distributed generation systems, advanced turbomachinery, and low temperature fuel cells. He is co-inventor of the Power, Water Extraction, and Refrigeration system, a novel gas turbine-absorption refrigeration combined cycle, as well as several inventions in the area of direct methanol fuel cells.

Education

Ph.D., 1984, Stanford University

Teaching Interests

Thermal sciences, including gas turbine and fuel cell systems and the fundamental thermal sciences.

Research Interests

Novel distributed generation systems, advanced turbomachinery, and low temperature fuel cells; combustion, especially Flameless combustion; transport processes