At 30,000 feet, the inside of a jet engine can reach 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit. Forces acting on the engine blades can reach 50,000 Gs, or more than 16,000 times the force astronauts experience during a shuttle launch. Given the extreme surroundings, much can go wrong, so monitoring the engine’s environmental conditions is critical.

For Otto Gregory, designing such sensors has been a life mission. For more than 25 years, the engineering professor has found novel ways to measure environmental conditions in the most hostile places. His research is craved by NASA, the Air Force and private industry. Just last month, Rolls Royce reached out to Gregory for help embedding high-temperature sensors in jet engines. His work is so novel that he counts 22 patents and more in the works.

“This is not theoretical research,” Gregory says. “This stuff will be used in the foreseeable future.”

Some of his research has already reached the market. He and a team of URI faculty and students developed a device that carries a carbon dioxide laser light to its destination inside the human body without absorbing the laser light. That keeps the power of the laser strong and provides doctors an accurate cutting tool during endoscopic surgery.

On the drawing board are wireless sensors that lie flat in jet engines where wires can clutter the system. Also on the docket are refining thermal devices that convert the temperature difference between something hot – i.e., a car muffler – and something cold – i.e., the surrounding air – into electricity.

Gregory found his passion for sensors while a young engineer working for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Gregory helped design sensors to monitor the safety of nuclear reactors. The immense importance of the sensors hooked him on engineering.

In 1978 he caught his break when a Brown University professor offered him a graduate fellowship and the opportunity to study ceramics for jet engine applications for NASA.

After earning his doctorate in 1983, Gregory accepted a professorship at the University of Rhode Island, where he had earned a bachelor’s in chemical engineering. As a professor, he quickly built labs and found a passion for solving real-life problems, such as ensuring the safety of a jet carrying hundreds of passengers.

“As an engineer, you don’t want to work on something that is not going to benefit mankind,” he says.

It is not all work and no play. A self-described “squash addict” the professor travels the country to compete in the sport.

And when he flies to squash competitions, he never worries about the critical components in the airplane’s engines. He knows they have been tested and retested and they work.