JAMES E. WEST
Research Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Phone: 410-516-8546
Email: jimwest@jhu.edu
James E. West, is a Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He retired as a Bell Laboratories Fellow, Lucent Technologies in 2001.
His pioneering research on charge storage and transport in polymers (the electrical analogy of a permanent magnet) led to the development of electret transducers for sound recording and voice communication.
Almost 90% of all microphones built today are based on the principles first published by West in the early 1960s. This simple but rugged transducer is the heart of most new telephones and can be found in most applications from toys to professional equipment.
West holds 47 U.S. and more than 200 foreign patents on various microphones and techniques for making
polymer electrets. He was inducted into The National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1999 for the invention of the electret microphone.
He has authored more than 100 papers and has contributed to several books on acoustics, solid state physics, and material science.
West is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; a Fellow, and past President, and past member of The Executive Council of Acoustical Society of America (1998-2001), and a Fellow of the IEEE. He currently serves as Chairman of the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering Council on Diversity.
West is a member of the Board of Directors of The National Inventors Hall of Fame, a member of the National Academy of Engineering’s Committee on Diversity in the Engineering Workforce and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of The International Symposium on Electrets.
West is the recipient of the Callinan Award (1970), sponsored by the Electrochemical Society of America, the Senior Award (1970), sponsored by the IEEE Group on Acoustics, the Lewis Howard Latimer Light Switch and Socket Award (1989), sponsored by the National Patent Law Association, the George R. Stibitz Trophy, sponsored by the Third Annual AT&T Patent Award (1993), and the New Jersey Inventor of the Year for 1995. He received The Acoustical Society of America's Silver Medal in Engineering Acoustics (1995), an honorary Doctor of Science degree from New Jersey Institute of Technology (1997).He received the Golden Torch Award (1998) sponsored by the National Society of Black Engineers, the Industrial Research Institutes 1998 Achievement Award, and The Ronald H. Brown American Innovator Award (1999). In 2002 he was The Audio Engineering Society Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecturer. West was awarded the Lewis Howard Latimer 2003 achievement award, and the JOHN WILLIAM STRUTT, 3rd Baron of Rayleigh 2003 Award, presented by the Mexican Institute of Acoustics. One of his early publications has been chosen as a ``Benchmark'' publication by the Acoustical Society of America.