James Fergason

James Lee Fergason (1934 to 2008) was an American inventor and business entrepreneur, a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame who is best known for his work on an improved liquid crystal display. Born on a farm near Wakenda, Missouri, he took a physics degree at the University of Missouri in 1956 and then worked at Westinghouse Research Laboratories, where he led early research on cholesteric liquid crystals and earned his first patent in 1963. In 1966 he joined the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University, where in 1969 he made his discovery of a low-power, field-operated liquid crystal display, the twisted nematic cell, a priority disputed by Martin Schadt and Wolfgang Helfrich of Hoffmann-La Roche. He founded ILIXCO in 1968 to make such displays, which went into the first LCD watches, and held over one hundred United States patents.