People are impressed when William E. Lee III tells them he has a patent in chip technology. "I just leave out the word potato," he says.
Lee is an associate professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Besides teaching, he advises public and private agencies on hazardous waste treatment and other environmental problems. (He's the fellow who wrote "Decaying Corpses: An Overlooked Source of Water Pollution?") Lee has investigated the use of metabolic-rate measures for the early diagnosis of serious illness.
But Lee also studies the sensory attributes of salted snack food, chiefly the chip. By avocation, he is the Crown Prince of Crisp, the Captain of Crunch, the Tsar of Tsnap.
Crispness and crunchiness are the sensory qualities that make or break the simple chip. Lee, who worked for seven years as a food sensory researcher at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati before entering academia, is arguably1 the nation's leading expert on C and C. When prestigious salted- snackmeisters wish to compare their products with competitors'--we're talking companies with names the mere sound of which would summon your spittle--they call on Lee.
