Samuel Jefferson Mason (1921–1974) was an American

electronics engineer Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active component, active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control e ...

. Mason's invariant and Mason's rule are named after him. He was born in New York City, but he grew up in a small town in New Jersey. It was so small, in fact, that it only had a population of 26. He received a B.S. in electrical engineering from

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

in 1942, and after graduation, he joined the Antenna Group of

MIT Radiation Laboratory The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 31 ...

as a staff member. Mason went on to earn his S.M. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

in 1947 and 1952, respectively. After World War II, the Radiation Laboratory was renamed the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, where he became the associate director in 1967. Mason served on the faculty of MIT from 1949 until his death in 1974 – as an assistant professor in 1949, associate professor in 1954, and full professor in 1959. Mason unexpectedly died in 1974 due to a

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

. Mason's doctoral dissertation, supervised by Ernst Guillemin, was on

signal-flow graph A signal-flow graph or signal-flowgraph (SFG), invented by Claude Shannon, but often called a Mason graph after Samuel Jefferson Mason who coined the term, is a specialized flow graph, a directed graph in which nodes represent system variables, ...

s and he is often credited with inventing them. Another one of his contributions to the field of control systems theory was a method to find the transfer function of a system, now known as Mason's rule. Mason was an expert in optical scanning systems for printed materials. He was the leader of the Cognitive Information Processing Group of the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, and he created systems that scanned printed materials and read them out loud for the blind. Similarly, he developed tactile devices powered by

photocells A photoresistor (also known as a photocell, or light-dependent resistor, LDR, or photo-conductive cell) is a passive component that decreases resistance with respect to receiving luminosity (light) on the component's sensitive surface. The resi ...

that enabled the blind to sense light. While at MIT, Mason was also responsible for revisions to the undergraduate curriculum in electrical engineering. He implemented innovations in the teaching of electric circuit theory by co-authoring a textbook on the subject, and he introduced digital signal analysis to undergraduates, which led to a textbook as well. Mason was also known to get students heavily involved in research, and he often had six or more doctoral candidates under his care. Mason also served his community as the chairman of the Faculty Committee on Student Environment, a member of the Faculty Committee on Education in the Face of Poverty and Segregation, and a leader of underprivileged youth in the

Upward Bound Upward Bound is a federally funded educational program within the United States. The program is one of a cluster of programs now referred to as TRiO, all of which owe their existence to the federal Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (the War on ...

program.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, Samuel Jefferson 20th-century American educators American electronics engineers Great Society programs MIT School of Engineering alumni 1921 births 1974 deaths People from New Jersey Rutgers University alumni