Wallace H. Coulter

Wallace H. Coulter (1913 to 1998) was an American electrical engineer, inventor and businessman whose best known patent among his 85 is the Coulter principle, a method for counting and sizing microscopic particles suspended in fluid. His Coulter Counter made possible the complete blood count, the most common medical diagnostic test, and the principle is also used in quality control of consumer products and was used to analyze Moon dust. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, he studied electrical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. After securing a patent in 1953, he and his brother Joseph began producing the counter, incorporated Coulter Electronics in 1958 and moved to Hialeah, Florida, in 1961; the company was acquired by Beckman Instruments in 1997. He also established the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation to improve health care through medical research and engineering.