James E. West

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James Edward Maceo West (born February 10, 1931 in Prince Edward County , Virginia ) is an American acoustician and, together with Gerhard Sessler, is the inventor of the electret microphone .

James Edward Maceo West

His parents were Samuel West and the teacher Matilda West. James became interested in electrical phenomena at an early age after finding an old radio and receiving an electric shock in the process. At the age of 12 he helped his cousin, who worked part-time as an electrician , to lay electrical cables.

After high school, he began pre-medical studies at Hampton University at the request of his parents , but was then drafted into the Korean War, where he received the Purple Heart . He then moved to Temple University and solid state physics . He started as an intern at Bell Laboratories during the summer holidays , where he was permanently employed in 1957 after completing his Bachelor of Science . Here he and Gerhard Sessler developed the foil electret microphone , for which they applied for a US patent granted in 1964 in 1962.

He also developed microphones with adaptive proximity characteristics, first and second order differential microphones, blood pressure monitoring sensors, broadband telephone receivers and microphone arrays.

In addition to his work on transducers, he also made important contributions to room acoustics. In an article with Sessler from 1964, he defined the seat effect, the damping of low to medium frequencies by the rows of seats in concert halls.

He has published over 100 scientific articles, received 47 US patents and over 200 foreign patents. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the National Academy of Engineering for his work on electroacoustic transducers . Since 1962 he has been a member of the Acoustical Society of America . He has been a member of the Association of Black Laboratories Employees (ABLE) at Bell since the 1970s .

He retired from Bell in 2001 and is now Research Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University . Among other things, he works on the technical optimization of telephone conferences and is involved in programs to promote women and minorities in the natural sciences, mathematics and technical courses.

In 2006 he received the National Medal of Technology and in 2010 with Sessler the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering.

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  1. ↑ James E. West: Gold Medal Award - 2006. Acoustical Society of America ( Memento June 20, 2010 on the Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ Dr. James E. West: Electret Microphone Inventor. Black-Inventor.com ( Memento from July 21, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ).
  3. ^ Electroacoustic transducer. United States Patent 3118022, Jan. 14, 1964. Free Patents Online.
  4. ↑ Gerhard Sessler and James. E. West: Sound Transmission over Theater Seats. In: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Vol. 36, 1964, pp. 1725-1732.
  5. ↑ James E. West - Professor. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, accessed December 22, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME West, James E.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES West, James Edward Maceo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American acoustician
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Prince Edward County