Greg Rieker, associate professor in mechanical engineering, is widely recognized for his ability to translate fundamental technologies from physics labs into real-world applications. He boasts six issued patents–four of which are actively licensed–and three pending patents.
Rieker leads a highly productive traditional research group and has served as PI or Co-PI on over $53 million in grants to the university, including supporting an average of 15 full-time and graduate student researchers.
One of the two startups Rieker has created and led, LongPath Technologies, has grown to 10 employees and landed its first commercial customer and revenue without any equity funding. LongPath has already mitigated methane emissions in the tens of thousands of tons of CO2-equivalent and could quickly reach many millions of tons mitigated on an annual basis.
Rieker helped reimagine several graduate design classes to include a stronger emphasis on intellectual property development and commercialization activities, and he has continued to mentor a dozen of the more than 200 students attending these classes. He is now also mentoring faculty seeking to develop intellectual property and integrate innovation into their research.
