William Alden Edson

William Alden Edson (October 30, 1912 – April 13, 2012) was a scientist and engineer specializing in vacuum tube oscillators, radar, antennas and microwave technologies. His work spans universities, research institutions and commercial ventures. He taught at Illinois Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology and Stanford University. He was a researcher at Bell Laboratories and later at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International). He also worked at General Electric and EMTECH, a company that he helped to found. His books, articles and patents have advanced technology in computers, radar detection and communications, for both civilian and defense applications. His works have been widely cited in scientific literature. Edson was born in Burchard, Nebraska to an educated farming family. Most of his childhood was spent in Olathe, Kansas, where his father, William Henry Edson, owned a modest farm. C. L. Edson was his uncle. His mother, Pearl (Montgomery) Edson was the librarian at the Carnegie library in Olathe. He had two siblings, married Saralou Peterson, and had three daughters. Edson attended the University of Kansas, where his father had also studied. There he earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1934 and 1935 respectively. He then entered Harvard University as a Gordon McKay scholar. The Gordon McKay endowment to Harvard was established upon the death of the entrepreneur in 1893, and was intended "to promote applied science..." by "aiding meritorious and needy students in pursuing those subjects..." Edson was a member of Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Tau and an associate member of Sigma Xi. Edson received his D.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Harvard University in 1937, at the age of 25. After earning his doctorate, he joined Bell Laboratories in the Murray Hill district of New York City as a member of the technical staff. Edson resigned that position to become an assistant professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1941.