James S. Thorp (February 7, 1937 – May 2, 2018) was the head of the Bradley Department of

Electrical and Computer Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...

. He was the Hugh P. and Ethel C. Kelly Professor Emeritus & Research Professor. He received all his degrees (B.S. 1959, M.S. 1961, and Ph.D. 1962) from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. Professor Thorp was a teacher, a researcher, and for many years served as the director, in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell, where he worked for 42 years, 1962-2004. Along with fellow Virginia Tech professor Arun G. Phadke, Thorp received

The Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memoria ...

's 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering for their contributions to the power industry, particularly microprocessor controllers in electric power systems that have significantly decreased the occurrence and duration of power blackouts. He was elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

in 1996 for his "contributions to the development of digital techniques for power system protection, monitoring, and control" and also was an

IEEE Fellow As of 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 5,082 members designated Fellow, each of whom is associated with one of the 41 societies under the IEEE. The Fellow grade of membership is the highest level of membershi ...

(since 1989).

References

1937 births 2018 deaths Virginia Tech faculty Cornell University alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering American electrical engineers Fellow Members of the IEEE {{US-electrical-engineer-stub