Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
William Wheeler (engineer)
Summary
William Wheeler (1851–1932) was an American civil engineer and educator.
The fourth of eight children, William was born in Concord, Massachusetts to Edwin and Mary (Rice) Wheeler.
He was the second-youngest member of the pioneer class of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (MAC). The summer between his junior and senior year, Wheeler worked for the town of Amherst as an engineer and as a surveyor for highway construction projects. He served as a substitute mathematics teacher for the college during the last semester of his senior year. He graduated second in his class in 1871, working for Massachusetts Central and other raiload companies for two years before starting his own firm.
The Meiji Emperor, in his efforts to modernize Japan, "looked to MAC as a model for progressive agricultural education" and made contact with its president and Wheeler's former professor William S. Clark to help found Sapporo Agricultural College (SAC, now Hokkaido University). Clark was granted leave from May 1876 to September 1877, and brought along three of his former students Wheeler, William Penn Brooks, and David P. Penhallow.
Wheeler's duties included teaching mathematics, civil engineering, and English. As a scientific adviser to the Kaitakushi (Hokkaido Development Commission) he set up a small meteorological observatory, surveyed potential transportation routes and oversaw the construction of a canal between Sapporo and Barato.
At Clark's return to the United States in 1877, Wheeler succeeded him as president of the SAC for a two-year contact, returning briefly in July 1878 to marry and bring back with him Fannie Eleanor Hubbard.
Back in Concord, Wheeler worked as a hydraulic engineer, was active in business and community affairs and served as a trustee of Massachusetts Agricultural College (1887–1929). In 1880, Wheeler patented "a novel form of lighting that he commercialized through the Wheeler Reflector Company, a highly profitable company that was an important manufacturer of street lighting into the middle of the twentieth century.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.