John Roy Whinnery
John Roy Whinnery (born July 26, 1916 in Read , Colorado , † February 1, 2009 in Walnut Creek , California ) was an American electrical engineer .
Life
Whinnery studied electrical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley . His family could not finance him during the Great Depression, but several of his college teachers raised money to enable him to visit Berkeley. He graduated from university with a bachelor's degree in 1937 , where he won the University Medal . In 1948 he received his doctorate there. During World War II, he worked on microwave technology and radar at General Electric . From 1946 he was a lecturer and from 1952 professor in Berkeley, where he headed the research laboratory for electronics from 1952 to 1956 and from 1956 to 1959 was head of the faculty for electrical engineering. From 1959 to 1963 he was dean of the engineering faculty. He became a University Professor at Berkeley in 1980 . In 1987 he retired.
In addition, in 1951/52 he headed research in microwave tubes at Hughes Aircraft and in 1963/64, after the discovery of lasers, he conducted research in this area at Bell Laboratories . In 1959 he was a Guggenheim Fellow at the ETH Zurich and visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz , and at Stanford . In addition to microwave technology (discontinuities in waveguides, amplifiers (triodes), traveling wave tubes such as the backward wave amplifier ), he later dealt with lasers, including ultra-short laser pulses.
During the Apollo program, he was in the Science and Technology Committee on Manned Space Flight of NASA .
John Whinnery had been married since 1944 and had three daughters.
Awards and honors (selection)
- 1952: Guggenheim grant
- 1985: IEEE Medal of Honor
- 1992: National Medal of Science
- 1997: Okawa Prize
Memberships (selection)
- since 1952: Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- since 1965: National Academy of Engineering
- since 1978: Optical Society of America
- since 1980: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- since 1972: National Academy of Sciences
- since 1988: Life member of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences
Fonts
- with Simon Ramo : Field and Waves in Modern Radio , 1944, new editions as Fields and Waves in Communication Electronics
Web links
- Obituary at the University of California (English)
- Engineering and Technology History Wiki (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated February 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Whinnery, John Roy |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American electrical engineer |
DATE OF BIRTH | July 26, 1916 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Read , Colorado |
DATE OF DEATH | February 1, 2009 |
Place of death | Walnut Creek , California |