Jerome "Jerry" Swartz (born 1940) is a physicist that developed early

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

strategies for

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

scanning technologies in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and co-founded the corporation,

Symbol Technologies Symbol Technologies is an American manufacturer and supplier of mobile data capture and delivery equipment. The company specializes in barcode scanners, mobile computers, RFID systems and Wireless LAN infrastructure. In 2014, Symbol Technolog ...

on Long Island, New York, with physicist partner, Dr. Shelley A. Harrison in 1973. Swartz was President, becoming the Chairman and Chief Scientist in 1982. In 2006 Symbol Technologies became a wholly owned subsidiary of the multinational telecommunications manufacturer,

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

Corporation. Swartz received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from The City College of New York and a Ph.D. also in electrical engineering from Polytechnic University in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, receiving fellowships from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

and

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

along the way. In July 2003, Swartz resigned from his position as chairman and chief scientist of Symbol Technologies, at which time the company was under investigation for civil and criminal accounting fraud. At the time of his resignation, Swartz was quoted in the New York Times as stating that an internal investigation had shown that "improper finance and accounting activities occurred while he was chairman". Symbol agreed to settle the case with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2004, paying a $37 million penalty. Currently, he is the Chairman of The Swartz Foundation for Computational Neuroscience. Established in 1994, it has grown to support research in 11 centers (

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, and quantitative biology. It is one of 68 institutions supported by the Cancer Centers ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

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 high ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

Salk Institute The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute located in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California, U.S. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vacci ...

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...

and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

). The Swartz Foundation funds the annual

Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience The Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, established in 2008, is an annual award supported by the Swartz Foundation and administered by the Society for Neuroscience. The award "honors an individual whose activities have produ ...

Awards

In 1998, he was awarded the IEEE Ernst Weber Engineering Leadership Recognition. In 2000, he was elected a member of 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 of ...

for bar code technologies, including laser scanners and wireless data capture.

References

External links

Biography of Swartz at the Swartz Foundation

Symbol Technologies website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swartz, Jerome 21st-century American physicists Motorola Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering 1940 births Polytechnic Institute of New York University faculty Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni