Alan Bicksler Fowler (born October 15, 1928) is an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

Life and education

He was born in Denver, Colorado on October 15, 1928. Fowler served in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1948 and from 1952 to 1953. He earned a BS in 1951, then an MS in 1952 from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany a ...

. In 1958, he earned his PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Fowler was married to Kathleen Devlin for 65 years, until her death in 2016, with whom he had two sons and two daughters. He is a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

Career

He worked as a researcher for Raytheon Technologies, from 1953 to 1956, and for IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1958 to 1993, and was a member of the IBM

MOS MOS or Mos may refer to: Technology * MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor * Mathematical Optimization Society * Model output statistics, a weather-forecasting technique * MOS (filmm ...

research group. He is an IBM Fellow Emeritus. Fowler is named as a co-inventor in nine

U.S. Patent Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited ...

s. Fowler was awarded the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize by the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

in 1988.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fowler, Alan 1928 births 21st-century American physicists IBM Fellows Foreign Members of the Royal Society Living people Scientists from Denver Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize winners Harvard University alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society