Jeff Wilson

Jeff Wilson is an American academic and entrepreneur. The pseudonym Professor Dumpster is based upon his role as part of 'The Dumpster Project', an educational experiment that transformed a trash dumpster into a fully sustainable home. Wilson lived in the dumpster over the course of the yearlong project, from 4 February 2014 to 4 February 2015.

KASITA rendering

Wilson is currently CEO at KASITA. KASITA builds 319 square foot (29.6 m²) pre-fabricated modular smart homes that stack and are transportable. KASITA was named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies of 2016 in Architecture and won the 2016 SXSW Interactive Innovation Award in the Smart Cities category.

Professor Dumpster

Wilson is the Chairman and Founder of the 501(c)3 non-profit 'The Dumpster Project', 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. The project has been featured in a variety of local and national news sources. The project won an HBCU Ford Corporation community sustainability grant and a $10,000 Home Depot 'Retool Your School' competition, but a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign was cancelled a few days before the deadline when it did not reach its goal. 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.

Phase II of Dumpster, Aug 2014

On August 4, 2014, after six months of Phase I (Dumpster Camping), the educational project moved into the second phase, the 'Ultimate Studio Apartment'. In this Phase, the dumpster will receive standard appliances found in most homes (e.g. window unit A/C, lighting, toilet, and shower) in order to develop a 'baseline' of energy and water use before moving into the third phase, Über Dumpster". As part of the educational mission of The Dumpster Project, a weather station was brought online, tracking interior and exterior weather conditions, including temperature, relative humidity, solar irradiance and 11 other variables. The purpose of the weather station is to allow elementary students to test the properties of various insulation materials. Though Wilson moved out of the dumpster in February 2015, it will remain based at the college campus where Wilson works and become a rotating space for teachers and educators as part of the 'Dumpster Project 'Home' School Residency Program. On the first night of the new home school program, Austin Independent School District Blackshear Elementary Principal Betty Jenkins stayed in the dumpster and eight of her teachers camped overnight around the dumpster.

Wilson and Bensen in No Baggage

Together with freelance writer Clara Bensen he 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. New Line Cinema has acquired the right to produce a feature film and hired Adam Brooks of Bridget Jonesto screen write the film based on a book from Perseus Books entitled 'No Baggage' by Bensen.

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

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