Famous Electrical Engineers

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist. He is best known for his work on the modern alternating current electricity supply system. Before immigrating to the United States in 1884, Tesla gained experience in telephony and electrical engineering while working for Thomas Edison in New York City. He then started his own path with financial backers, setting up companies and laboratories to develop electrical devices. George Westinghouse licensed his patented AC induction motor and transformer.

Guglielmo Marconi (1874–1937) was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer. He pioneered long-distance radio transmission, developed Marconi's law, and established a radio telegraph system. Marconi invented radio and shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun for their work on wireless telegraphy. He also founded The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in the United Kingdom.

Michael Faraday (FRS; September 22, 1791 – August 25, 1867) was an English scientist who studied electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His major discoveries included the principles of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and electrolysis. Although Faraday received little formal schooling, he became one of history's most influential scientists. He established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics by researching the magnetic field around a conductor carrying direct current.

Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and pioneer. He was self-described "Father of Radio" and developed sound-on-film recording for motion pictures. De Forest held over 180 patents but had a turbulent career. He boasted he made and lost four fortunes. He faced several patent lawsuits, spent much of his income on legal fees, and was tried for mail fraud. In 1906, he created the "Audion" (triode) vacuum tube, the first practical amplification device.

George Westinghouse Jr. (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914) was an American entrepreneur and engineer from Pennsylvania. He invented the railway air brake and pioneered the electrical industry, securing his first patent at age 19. Westinghouse saw potential in alternating current for power distribution in the early 1880s. He invested heavily in developing and marketing AC technology, putting his business in direct competition with Edison's direct current system. In 1911, he received the AIEE's Edison Medal.

Loni Love was born July 12, 1971. She is an American comedian, television host, actress, and author. While working as an electrical engineer in the early 2000s, she shifted to music engineering before launching a stand-up comedy career. Love was the runner-up on Star Search 2003 and received recognition for "Top 10 Comics to Watch" from Variety and Comedy Central in 2009. Currently, she hosts The Real alongside Jeannie Mai, Tamera Mowry-Housley, and Adrienne Houghton, starting July 15, 2013.

Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (1858–1935), also known as Michael I. Pupin, was a Serbian American physicist and physical chemist. He received numerous patents. One patent involved extending long-distance telephone communication by placing loading coils of wire at set intervals along the transmitting wire, a method called "pupinization". Pupin was also a founding member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

Charles Proteus Steinmetz (born Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz, April 9, 1865 – October 26, 1923) was a German-born American mathematician and electrical engineer. As a professor at Union College, he developed alternating current, which expanded the electric power industry in the United States. He created mathematical theories for engineers. Steinmetz made discoveries about hysteresis that allowed engineers to design better electromagnetic equipment, including industrial electric motors.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who spied for the Soviet Union. The federal government tried, convicted, and executed them. They provided secret information regarding radar, sonar, and jet propulsion engines. They were accused of transmitting nuclear weapon designs; the United States was the only country with nuclear weapons at that time. Other convicted co-conspirators included Ethel's brother, David Greenglass (who made a plea agreement), Harry Gold, and Morton Sobell. Klaus Fuchs, a German, was also involved.

Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – February 1, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor, who developed FM (frequency modulation) radio and the superheterodyne receiver system. He held 42 patents and received numerous awards, including the first Medal of Honor awarded by the Institute of Radio Engineers (now IEEE), the French Legion of Honor, the 1941 Franklin Medal and the 1942 Edison Medal. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and included in the International Telecommunication Union's roster of great inventors.

Charles Frederick Burgess (June 5, 1873, Oshkosh, Wisconsin – February 13, 1945, Chicago, Illinois) was an American chemist and engineer. In 1905, he founded the University of Wisconsin-Madison department of Chemical Engineering. He pioneered electrochemical engineering. In 1917, he founded the Burgess Battery Company.

Arnold Orville Beckman lived from April 10, 1900, to May 18, 2004. He was an American chemist, inventor, investor, and philanthropist. While at the California Institute of Technology, he founded Beckman Instruments. This company was based on his 1934 invention of the pH meter. The pH meter measured acidity. It is considered to have revolutionized chemistry and biology. Beckman funded the first transistor company, which led to Silicon Valley.

William Nelson Joy was born November 8, 1954. He is an American computer engineer. In 1982, he co-founded Sun Microsystems with Scott McNealy, Vinod Khosla, and Andy Bechtolsheim. He served as chief scientist at the company until 2003. Joy played a role in developing BSD UNIX while studying at Berkeley. He wrote the vi text editor. In 2000, he wrote the essay Why The Future Doesn't Need Us, expressing concerns about modern technologies.

Albert Macovski is an American Professor (Emeritus) at Stanford University. He innovated in imaging, especially medicine. He holds over 150 patents and authored more than 200 technical articles. His innovations include the single-tube color camera and real-time phased array imaging for ultrasound. Macovski contributed to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computerized axial tomography (CAT scans), and digital radiography. His honors include Founding Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Philo Taylor Farnsworth lived from August 19, 1906, to March 11, 1971. He was an American inventor and television pioneer. Farnsworth made contributions to early all-electronic television development. He invented the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube) in 1927. He also invented the image dissector. Farnsworth created the first complete all-electronic television system, including a receiver and camera, commercially through the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation starting in 193.

Eric Emerson Schmidt was born April 27, 1955. He is an American businessman and software engineer. Schmidt served as CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011. He was Executive Chairman of Google from 2011 to 2015. He was also executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2017. In 2017, Forbes ranked Schmidt as the 119th-richest person globally with an estimated wealth of US$11.1 billion. As an intern at Bell Labs, Schmidt rewrote Lex, a software program for UNIX lexical analysers. From 1997 to 2001, he served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Novell.

Ray Milton Dolby lived from January 18, 1933, to September 12, 2013. He was an American engineer and inventor of the noise reduction system called Dolby NR. He helped develop the video tape recorder at Ampex. Dolby founded Dolby Laboratories.

John Bardeen (May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991) was an American physicist and electrical engineer. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice. In 1956, he received it with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for inventing the transistor. In 1972, he received it again with Leon N Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity known as the BCS theory. The transistor changed the electronics industry. It made modern electronic devices possible, including telephones and computers.

Calvin Forrest Quate lived from December 7, 1923, to July 6, 2019. He was one of the inventors of the atomic force microscope. Quate was also a professor emeritus of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.

Steven Mann was born in 1962. He is a Canadian researcher and inventor. Mann is known for work on augmented reality, computational photography, wearable computing, and high dynamic range imaging.

Ernst Werner von Siemens (von Siemens from 1888; German name: [ˈziːməns, -mɛns]) was a German inventor and industrialist. His name is used for the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. He founded the electrical and telecommunications company Siemens.

Julius Edgar Lilienfeld lived from April 18, 1882, to August 28, 1963. He was an Austro-Hungarian American physicist and electrical engineer. Lilienfeld patented the field-effect transistor (FET) in 1925 and the electrolytic capacitor in 1931. His FET patent did not gain fame because he failed to publish articles in learned journals and high-purity semiconductor materials were unavailable.

Gerard Joseph Foschini was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1940. He is an American telecommunications engineer who worked for Bell Laboratories since 1961. His research covered data communications, including wireless and optical communications. Foschini also worked on point-to-point systems and networks.

Elihu Thomson lived from March 29, 1853, to March 13, 1937. He was an English-born American engineer and inventor. Thomson helped found major electrical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

An Wang (Chinese: 王安; pinyin: Wáng Ān; February 7, 1920 – March 24, 1990) was a Chinese–American computer engineer and inventor, and co-founder of computer company Wang Laboratories, which was known primarily for its dedicated word processing machines. An Wang was an important contributor to the development of magnetic core memory.

Paul Wilbur Klipsch (born March 9, 1904 in Elkhart, Indiana – died: May 5, 2002 in Hope, Arkansas) was an American engineer and high fidelity audio pioneer, known for developing a high-efficiency folded horn loudspeaker. Unsatisfied with the sound quality of phonographs and early speaker systems, Klipsch used scientific principles to develop a corner horn speaker that sounded more lifelike than its predecessors. The Klipschorn, which today is still manufactured and sold worldwide, proved popular. The resulting acoustics career of Klipsch spanned from 1946, when he founded one of the first U.S.

Rowan Atkinson, a British comedian and actor, is renowned worldwide for his iconic roles in both television and film. Born in Consett, County Durham, England, in 1955, Atkinson grew up in a modest environment but his fervor for acting and comedy was evident from the start. He pursued a degree in Electrical Engineering at Newcastle University before attending Oxford University for his master's. While at Oxford, he managed to blend his academic pursuits with his passion for entertainment, participating in various drama clubs and sketch comedies. This period of time marked the genesis of his come

Robert Dennard (born September 5, 1932) is an American electrical engineer and inventor. Dennard was born in Terrell, Texas, U.S.. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, in 1954 and 1956, respectively. He earned a Ph.D. from Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1958. His professional career was spent as a researcher for International Business Machines. In 1966 he invented dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), for which a patent was issued in 1968. Dennard was also among the first to recognize the tr

Frank Julian Sprague (July 25, 1857 in Milford, Connecticut – October 25, 1934) was an American naval officer and inventor who contributed to the development of the electric motor, electric railways, and electric elevators. His contributions were especially important in promoting urban development by increasing the size cities could reasonably attain (through better transportation) and by allowing greater concentration of business in commercial sections (through use of electric elevators in skyscrapers). He became known as the "Father of Electric Traction".

Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory". Shannon is noted for having founded information theory with a landmark paper, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", that he published in 1948. He is also well known for founding digital circuit design theory in 1937, when—as a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—he wrote his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of Boolean algebra could construct any logica

Edmund O. Schweitzer III (born 1947, Evanston, Illinois) is an electrical engineer, inventor, and founder of Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL). Schweitzer launched SEL in 1982 in Pullman, Washington. Today, SEL manufacturers a wide variety of products that protect the electric power grid and industrial control systems at its three state-of-the-art U.S. manufacturing facilities in Pullman, Washington; Lewiston, Idaho; and, Lake Zurich, Illinois. SEL products and technologies are used in virtually every substation in North America and are in operation in 164 countries.Recognized as a pio

Peter Cooper Hewitt (May 5, 1861 – August 25, 1921) was an American electrical engineer and inventor, who invented the first mercury-vapor lamp in 1901. Hewitt was issued U.S. Patent 682,692 on September 17, 1901. In 1903, Hewitt created an improved version that possessed higher color qualities which eventually found widespread industrial use.

Robert (Bob) Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946) is an engineer-entrepreneur from the United States who helped pioneer the Internet starting in 1970, co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's law. Starting in January 2011, he is Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also the Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise.Metcalfe has received various awards, including the IEEE Medal of Honor and National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his work developing Ethernet technology. In addition to his accomplishments, Metcalfe i

Charles Francis Brush (March 17, 1849 – June 15, 1929) was an American engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

Harry Ward Leonard (February 8, 1861 – February 18, 1915) was an electrical engineer and inventor. He is best known for his invention, the Ward Leonard motor control system. Equipment based on this invention remained in service into the 21st century.

Nolan Bushnell is an actor who appeared in "Video Games: The Movie," and "Made in the U.S.A.."

Steven J. Sasson (born July 4, 1950) is an American electrical engineer and the inventor of the first self-contained (portable) digital camera. Sasson is a 1972 (BS) and 1973 (MS) graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in electrical engineering. He attended and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. He has worked for Eastman Kodak since shortly after his graduation from engineering school.

Haraden Pratt (July 18, 1891 - August 1, 1969) was a noted American electrical engineer and radio pioneer. Pratt was born in San Francisco, California, where his parents were telegraph operators. He learned Morse code when young and worked briefly as a shipboard wireless operator before entering the University of California (Class of 1914). After graduation, he joined the American Marconi Company and helped to install and operate its 300-kilowatt trans-Pacific radio station at Bolinas, California and its companion receiver station in Marshall, California. From 1915-1920 Pratt was a radio aide

Charles Joseph Van Depoele (27 April 1846, Lichtervelde, West Flanders, Belgium – 18 March 1892, Lynn, Massachusetts, US) was an electrical engineer, inventor, and pioneer in electric railway technology, including the first trolley pole.

Eric Copeland is a member of the experimental electronic music group Black Dice.

Jiang Zemin (UK: , US: ; born 17 August 1926) is a retired Chinese politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002 as Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2004 and as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003. Jiang has been described as the "core of the third generation" of Communist Party leaders since 1989. Jiang came to power unexpectedly as a 'compromise candidate' following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 when he replaced Zhao Ziyang as General Secretary after Zhao w

Harvey Hubbell II (December 20 1858 - December 17, 1927), was an American inventor, entrepreneur and industrialist. His best-known inventions are the U.S. electrical plug and the pull-chain light socket.In 1888, at the age of thirty-one, Hubbell quit his job as a manager of a manufacturing company and founded Hubbell Incorporated in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a company which is still in business today, still headquartered near Bridgeport. Hubbell began manufacturing consumer products and, by necessity, inventing manufacturing equipment for his factory. Some of the equipment he designed included

Alexander Nikolayevich Lodygin, known after immigration to US as Alexandre de Lodyguine (Russian: Александр Николаевич Лодыгин; 18 October 1847 – 16 March 1923) was a Russian electrical engineer and inventor, one of inventors of the incandescent light bulb. Alexander Nikolayevich Lodygin was born in Stenshino village, Tambov Governorate, Russian Empire. His parents were of a very old and noble family (descendants of Andrei Kobyla like Romanovs), but of very moderate means. He studied at the Tambov Cadet School (1859–1865). Then he served in the 71st Belev regiment, and in 1866–1868 studied at

John Robinson Pierce (March 27, 1910 – April 2, 2002), was an American engineer and author. He worked extensively in the fields of radio communication, microwave technology, computer music, psychoacoustics, and science fiction. As a sideline to his professional career he wrote science fiction for many years under various names: John Pierce, John R. Pierce, and J. J. Coupling. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he earned his PhD from Caltech, and died in Palo Alto, California from complications of Parkinson's Disease.

Harry Nyquist (, Swedish: [²nyːkvɪst]; February 7, 1889 – April 4, 1976) was a Swedish-born American electronic engineer who made important contributions to communication theory.

Daniel Singer Bricklin (born 16 July 1951), often referred to as “The Father of the Spreadsheet”, is the American co-creator, with Bob Frankston, of the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. He also founded Software Garden, Inc., of which he is currently president, and Trellix Corporation. He currently serves as the chief technology officer of Alpha Software.His book, Bricklin on Technology, was published by Wiley in May 2009.

Robert Calderbank (born 28 December 1954) is a professor of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Mathematics and director of the Information Initiative at Duke. He received a BSc from Warwick University in 1975, an MSc from Oxford in 1976, and a PhD from Caltech, all in mathematics. He joined Bell Labs in 1980, and retired from AT&T Labs in 2003 as Vice President for Research and Internet and network systems. He then went to Princeton as a professor of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Applied and Computational Mathematics, before moving to Duke in 2010 to become Dean of Natural

Edward E. Simmons Jr. (1911 in Los Angeles, California – May 18, 2004, in Pasadena, California) was an electrical engineer and the inventor of the bonded wire resistance strain gauge. Simmons attended the California Institute of Technology, where he received a B.S. in 1934 and an M.S. in 1936. He continued to work for the Institute under Assistant Professor Donald Clark. In 1938, Simmons invented the strain gauge. Caltech claimed the patent on the strain gauge, but Simmons took his case to the Supreme Court of California, and won patent rights in 1949.The Franklin Institute awarded Simmons the

Harold "Hal" Abelson (born April 26, 1947) is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and a founding director of both Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation. He directed the first implementation of the language Logo for the Apple II, which made the language widely available on personal computers starting in 1981; and published a widely selling book on Logo in 1982. Together with Gerald Jay Sussman, Abelson developed MIT's introductory compu

Zénobe Théophile Gramme (April 4, 1826 – January 20, 1901) was a Belgian electrical engineer. He was born at Jehay-Bodegnée on April 4, 1826, the sixth child of Mathieu-Joseph Gramme, and died at Bois-Colombes on January 20, 1901. He invented the Gramme machine, a direct current dynamo that produced smoother (less AC) power and much higher voltages than existing dynamos.