James West (inventor)

James Edward Maceo West (born February 10, 1931) is an American inventor and acoustician. He holds over 250 foreign and U.S. patents for the production and design of microphones and techniques for creating polymer foil electrets.

Personal life

West was born on February 10, 1931, in Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia as the elder of two children to Samuel Edward and Matilda West. He was born in his maternal grandfather's house because the local hospital would not admit African-Americans. His father worked at various points as a funeral home owner, an insurance salesman, and as a Pullman porter on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. His mother was a schoolteacher who worked at Langley Air Force Base during World War II; she later lost her job due to her involvement in the NAACP and became one of the "Hidden Figures" (African-American human computers who worked for NASA at Langley Research Center). His maternal grandmother, who was formerly enslaved, was a major influence on him; she raised him while his mother was away teaching at a Native American reservation in Pennsylvania. He became interested in electricity after taking a job aged twelve installing electrical wiring in homes in rural Virginia with his cousin.

After attending school in Farmville, his parents moved him to Phenix High School in Hampton, Virginia for better opportunities; he was to have attended Robert Russa Moton High School. After graduating high school he attended Hampton University on a pre-medical track, before being drafted into the U.S. Army in the Korean War, where he received a Purple Heart due to being wounded there. He then became a pacifist and attended Temple University learning Physics, where he was initially rejected from study groups due to his race, only being invited to join them after solving the most complex group problems on his own. At Temple he read works by Leon Trotsky and attended Black Panther meetings. As a graduate student he did a summer internship with Bell Laboratories where he began designing work on the Electret microphone. He completed bachelor's and master's coursework in Physics at Temple University by 1957 but did not officially graduate because he returned to Bell Laboratories to continue work on the microphone in November of that year.

In 2001, West retired from Lucent Technologies after a distinguished 40-year career at Bell Laboratories where he received the organization's highest honor, being named a Bell Laboratories Fellow. West then joined the faculty of the Whiting School at Johns Hopkins University where he is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2007, West received an honorary doctorate from NJIT.

He has four children with his wife Marlene.

Inventions and scientific contributions

Along with Gerhard Sessler, West invented the foil electret microphone in 1962 while developing instruments for human hearing research. Compared to the previous condenser microphones, the electret microphone has higher capacitance and does not require a DC bias. West and Sessler optimized the mechanical and surface parameters of the system. Nearly 90 percent of more than two billion microphones produced annually are based on the principles of the foil-electret and are used in everyday items such as telephones, camcorders, hearing aids, baby monitors, and audio recording devices among others. West measured the acoustics of Philharmonic Hall in New York City. Recently, West teamed with Ilene Busch-Vishniac and studied the acoustic environment of hospitals showing that hospitals are in general too loud and that the noise levels affect staff and patients. West has over 250 patents to his name. At Johns Hopkins, he has worked on a device to detect pneumonia in lungs of young children.

Supporting minorities in the sciences

In addition to his multiple contributions to acoustical science, throughout his career West has been a fervent advocate for greater diversity in the fields of science and technology. While at Bell Laboratories, West co-founded the Association of Black Laboratory Employees (ABLE), an organization formed to "address placement and promotional concerns of Black Bell Laboratories employees." He was also instrumental in the creation and development of both the Corporate Research Fellowship Program (CRFP) for graduate students pursuing terminal degrees in the sciences, as well as the Summer Research Program, which together provided opportunities for over 500 non-white graduate students. Since 2015, West has served on the board of directors of the Ingenuity Project, a Baltimore non-profit that supports talented middle and high school students in science and math.

Awards

West is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and in 2010, along with Gerhard M. Sessler, West was the recipient of The Franklin Institute's Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1998 for "electret transducers and their applications to microphones" and was also inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1999. and He is also the recipient of numerous other honors and awards such as the Silver Medal in Engineering Acoustics from the Acoustical Society of America.

References

External links

Engineering and Technology History Wiki (ETHW)
biographical entry for James E. West
Profile on Black-inventor.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:West, James
1931 births
Living people
National Medal of Technology recipients
African-American engineers
African-American inventors
American scientists
Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering
Fellows of the Acoustical Society of America
People from Farmville, Virginia
Johns Hopkins University faculty
Temple University alumni
Hampton University alumni
United States Army personnel of the Korean War
African-American United States Army personnel
African Americans in the Korean War
Scientists at Bell Labs
Scientists from Virginia
20th-century American engineers
20th-century American scientists
20th-century American inventors
21st-century American engineers
21st-century American scientists
21st-century American inventors
ASA Gold Medal recipients
20th-century African-American scientists
21st-century African-American scientists
Inventors from Virginia