Grant M. Wilson

Who is Grant M. Wilson?

Grant McDonald Wilson was an American thermodynamicist.

Wilson was born in Colonia Pacheco, Chihuahua. He did his undergraduate work at BYU in 1953 and then attended and graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a PhD in Physical Chemistry in 1957. While at MIT he began his career by developing one of the first computer-based Activity Coefficient Equations. Known as the Wilson Equation, it is one of the most widely used equations in the field of industrial thermodynamics for the prediction of phase equilibria. Wilson has been a research scientist measuring and reporting physical properties and phase equilibria data for most of his career. He joined Shell Research and Development in California upon graduating from MIT, he then joined Air Products and later moved to PVT Inc. of Houston, Texas. While there he performed a number of Research Projects for the Gas Processors Association. At this time he also did extensive work with cubic equations of state, he was one of the first to modify the alpha form of the Redlich-Kwong EOS to better represent pure component vapor pressures. He next taught at BYU in Provo, Utah, from 1970 to 1978 while there he was a part of the on-campus research group, the Thermochemical Institute founded by Profs. James J. Christensen and Reed M. Izatt. Wilson left BYU to create the company Wilco Research Company in 1977 which measured data for the Chemical Process Industries.