G. W. Pierce

George Washington Pierce (1872 to 1956) was an American physicist and communication engineer, described as one of the founding fathers of communication engineering. Born in Webberville, Texas, he studied physics at the University of Texas, earned a Harvard doctorate in 1900 and spent his career at Harvard, where he became the first director of the Cruft Laboratory in 1914 and Rumford Professor in 1921. His early work measured current distribution in loop antennas and tested crystal rectifiers, and in the 1920s he invented the oscillator that carries his name, patented in 1923, along with a magnetostriction oscillator patented in 1928. He wrote Principles of Wireless Telegraphy, served as IRE president in 1918 and 1919, received its Medal of Honor in 1929 and later studied the sounds of bats and insects.