Jeff Wilson
NationalityAmerican
Other namesProfessor Dumpster
Alma materUniversity of Canterbury (NZ)
Known forEnvironmental Health, Sustainability Education, Dumpster Diving
AwardsRegents' Outstanding Teaching Award
Scientific career
FieldsEnvironmental Science
InstitutionsHarvard, IBM, Ernst & Young, Huston–Tillotson University, University of Texas at Brownsville

Jeff Wilson is an American academic[1] and serial startup entrepreneur.[2] The pseudonym Professor Dumpster is based upon his role as part of 'The Dumpster Project',[3] an educational and minimalist living experiment that transformed a trash dumpster into a fully sustainable home. Wilson lived in the dumpster over the course of the yearlong project.[4]

Jupe

In 2020, Wilson launched Jupe, a flat-packed housing tech startup.[5]

Kasita

Kasita Exterior

Wilson was a Co-Founder and CEO at the startup company Kasita.[6][2][7] Kasita builds micro smart homes that are capable of stacking.[8][9][10][11][12][13] Kasita was named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies[14] and won a SXSW Interactive Innovation Award.[15] Wilson has referred to Kasita as a holistic integrated product, rather than a house.[16] In December 2018, Kasita was sold to a tiny house hotel company[17] in Austin, Texas.

The Dumpster Project

Professor Dumpster

Wilson is the Chairman and Founder of the 501(c)(3) non-profit 'The Dumpster Project',[18] a STEM educational experiment in which he moved into an empty dumpster and transformed it into a 33 square feet (3.1 m2) environmentally sustainable home.[19] The project has been featured in a variety of local and national news sources.[20][21][22][23][24][25] The project won an HBCU Ford Corporation community sustainability grant[26] and a $10,000 Home Depot 'Retool Your School' competition,[27] but a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign was cancelled a few days before the deadline when it did not reach its goal.[28] The project has received its share of criticism, as commenters have likened the endeavor to "poverty tourism" and noted the self-promotional nature of Wilson's publicity.[29] On August 4, 2014, after six months without electricity, the project moved into the second phase, aiming to create what Wilson referred to as the 'Ultimate Studio Apartment'.[30] Though Wilson moved out of the dumpster in February 2015 short of accomplishing the goal of building a fully functioning home, it remains on the college campus where Wilson worked and has become a rotating space for teachers and educators.[31][32] On the first night of the new home school program, Austin's Blackshear Elementary Principal Betty Jenkins overnighted in the dumpster.[4][33] Wilson claims that the dumpster experiment was the central inspiration for Wilson's creation of the startup company, Kasita.[6]

"No Baggage" experiment

Wilson and Bensen in No Baggage

Together with freelance writer Clara Bensen, Wilson performed the 'travel experiment' "No Baggage", in which they traveled for 21 days through eight countries with no change of clothes shortly after meeting on a dating website.[34][35][36] New Line Cinema has acquired the right to produce a feature film and hired Adam Brooks of Bridget Jones [37] to screen write the film based on a book[38] from Perseus Books entitled 'No Baggage' by Bensen.[39][40][41][42] American actress Shailene Woodley has been slated to play Bensen in the film.[43]

99 Nights Couchsurfing experiment

Subsequent to moving out of the dumpster, Wilson launched a project entitled '99 Nights ATX' in which he aimed to spend 99 nights in 99 different homes across Austin, gaining an up-close and intimate understanding of how Austinites relate to their home spaces.[4][44] The project is in collaboration with writer Clara Bensen.[45]

Academic Work

Wilson was formerly dean of the University College and an associate professor at Huston–Tillotson University in Austin, Texas.[1] He did post-doctoral work at Harvard, holds a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Canterbury[46] and is the recipient of a University of Texas Systems' Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award, the largest monetary teaching award in the United States.[47] Wilson has authored numerous publications in the environmental science field and has received funding from the National Science Foundation.[48]

References

  1. 1 2 Wilson, Jeff. "Jeff Wilson, Huston Tillotson". Huston Tillotson University. Archived from the original on 5 September 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
  2. 1 2 "Moving? You Can Take This Tiny, Cheap Smart Apartment With You Wherever You Go". Fast Company. Fast Company.
  3. ↑ "The dumpster project". Retrieved 2014-07-29.
  4. 1 2 3 "Professor Dumpster Moves Out ... And On". The Austin Chronicle.
  5. ↑ Nielsen, Duncan (17 December 2020). "Flat-Pack Prefab Shelter by Jupe". Dwell. Retrieved 2021-04-03.
  6. 1 2 Castillo, Michelle (2017-03-12). "Meet the start-up founder who lived in a dumpster to help fix the homeownership crisis". CNBC. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
  7. ↑ "Former dumpster dweller launches affordable smart homes for urban millennials". Inhabitat. 6 October 2015.
  8. ↑ "Could A Tiny Mobile Studio Solve Your Housing Crisis?". NPR.org. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  9. ↑ "Could A Tiny Mobile Studio Solve Your Housing Crisis?". All Things Considered. National Public Radio.
  10. ↑ "Professor Dumpster bringing tiny homes to Austin". ABC News. KVUE Austin. Archived from the original on 2016-01-20. Retrieved 2015-10-08.
  11. ↑ "Kasita is a tiny house that comes connected right out of the box". Macworld. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  12. ↑ Perhach, Paulette (2016-07-20). "Future House: 3-D Printed and Ready to Fly". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-07-25.
  13. ↑ Taylor, Peter. "Meet Kasita: The Micro-Housing Start-Up That's About To Revolutionize Real Estate". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-07-25.
  14. ↑ "The World's Most Innovative Companies by Sector: Architecture". Fast Company. Archived from the original on 2016-03-16. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  15. ↑ "Interactive Innovation Awards". South by Southwest 2016 Music, Film and Interactive Festivals - Austin Texas. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  16. ↑ "SXSW 2017: Kasita Aims To Commodify The Smart Home Experience | IPG Media Lab". www.ipglab.com. 13 March 2017. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
  17. ↑ "Austin's Tiny Home Startup Kasita Rides Again, With Tiny Hotels in Mind". TOWERS. 2019-07-30. Retrieved 2021-08-12.
  18. ↑ The Dumpster Project. "The Dumpster Project".
  19. ↑ "Texas Professor to Make Dumpster His Home for a Year". ABC News.
  20. ↑ "Living Simply in a Dumpster". www.theatlantic.com. The Atlantic. 11 September 2014. Retrieved April 25, 2019.
  21. ↑ "The Ultimate Tiny Home Is In A Dumpster". HuffPost. 6 July 2014.
  22. ↑ Alcorn, Stan (October 7, 2013). ""Professor Dumpster" Is Moving Into A Garbage Can, And Bringing His Students". Fast Company.
  23. ↑ "Professor will live in dumpster for 1 year". USA Today.
  24. ↑ "Trash talking professor moves into a dumpster". HLN Headline News.
  25. ↑ North, Anna (28 July 2014). "When it's cool to have nothing". New York Times. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  26. ↑ "Ford HBCU Challenge". Black America Web. 9 August 2016.
  27. ↑ "Retool Your School HBCU Challenge". Archived from the original on 2014-12-17. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  28. ↑ Wilson, Jeff (2014-06-30). "A Letter from Professor Dumpster to Supporters on the Kickstarter Cancellation". Retrieved 2014-07-27.
  29. ↑ "IT HAPPENED TO ME: I Live in a Dumpster". Archived from the original on 2018-03-16. Retrieved 2014-05-02.
  30. ↑ KVUE News. "New addition to dumpster home brings relief for the summer heat". Archived from the original on 2015-11-09. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  31. ↑ Fleur, Nicholas St (2016-02-05). "Learning to Live Small (in a Dumpster)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  32. ↑ "Dumpster Project Home School". The Dumpster Project.
  33. ↑ "Living in a Dumpster 1 Year Later". Time Warner Cable. 5 Feb 2015.
  34. ↑ "Extreme dating: Jeff Wilson and Clara Benson describe how they got to know each other while on a European vacation right after they met online". ABC.
  35. ↑ "Couple goes on trip just after weeks after meeting on OKCupid". Fox News. 4 February 2017.
  36. ↑ "Daters speed up relationship with voyage, sans luggage". USA Today.
  37. ↑ "New Line Ramping Up 'No Baggage, Based on 'Craziest OkCupid Date Ever'". www.variety.com. 23 September 2014. Retrieved April 25, 2019.
  38. ↑ Winchester, Simon (2016-06-01). "Travel: Philip Marsden's 'Rising Ground' and More". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-07-25.
  39. ↑ Winchester, Simon (2016-06-01). "Travel: Philip Marsden's 'Rising Ground' and More". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
  40. ↑ Bensen, Clara (2016). No baggage : a minimalist tale of love & wandering. Philadelphia: Running Press. ISBN 978-0-7624-5724-3. OCLC 905686126.
  41. ↑ "About Clara Bensen". Retrieved 2014-07-29.
  42. ↑ "New Line Going on 'The Craziest OkCupid Date Ever' for Three Weeks". FirstShowing.net. 2 May 2014.
  43. ↑ Lee, Benjamin (2016-08-04). "Shailene Woodley to star in film about 'craziest OkCupid date ever'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
  44. ↑ "99NightsATX". 99 Nights ATX Website.
  45. ↑ Clara, Bensen. "Clare Bensen website". Clara Bensen.
  46. ↑ "PhD Research - The University of Canterbury". The University of Canterbury. Archived from the original on 2017-07-28. Retrieved 2014-01-12.
  47. ↑ "Regents Outstanding Teaching Awards". The University of Texas System. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-01-12.
  48. ↑ "Advancing Undergraduate to Geo-environmental Master's for Engaged Needs-based Talented Students (AUGMENTS) scholarships program". National Science Foundation.
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