Emerson W. Pugh, 1989 IEEE president, died on 8 December on the age of 95.
The IEEE Fellow served as president of the IEEE Foundation from 2000 to 2004.
“Emerson Pugh was one of many very first IEEE volunteers I met after I joined the IEEE workers in 1997,” says Karen Galuchie, IEEE Foundation government director. “I will likely be perpetually grateful to Emerson for the teachings he taught me, the eagerness with which he shared his time and expertise with IEEE, and the position he performed in creating the IEEE Basis we all know right now.”
Pugh was an lively member of the IEEE History Committee, serving as its chair in 1997. In 2009 he labored with the IEEE History Center to create the IEEE STARS (Vital Technological Achievement Recognition Picks) program, a web based compendium of invited, peer-reviewed articles on the history of major developments in electrical and laptop science and know-how. The articles have been included into the Engineering and Technology History Wiki.
“Emerson Pugh was probably the most influential volunteer throughout my greater than 27-year tenure (thus far),” says Michael Geselowitz, senior director of the IEEE Historical past Middle. “He was in a position to mix his three passions—engineering, IEEE, and historical past—by becoming a member of the IEEE Historical past Committee.”
Pugh labored for 35 years at IBM, the place he developed a lot of reminiscence applied sciences for early laptop techniques.
Modern work at IBM
He obtained bachelor’s and doctoral levels in physics from Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) in 1951 and 1956. Following commencement, he joined the varsity as an assistant professor of physics. After a 12 months of educating, he left to hitch IBM, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., as a researcher within the metallic physics group. In 1958 he was promoted to supervisor of the group.
Pugh was a visiting scientist in 1961 and 1962 at IBM’s Zurich laboratory earlier than relocating to the corporate’s Watson Research Center, in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. There he led the event of a skinny magnetic movie reminiscence array used within the IBM System/360, a household of mainframe laptop techniques that debuted in 1964.
In 1965 he was named director of IBM’s operational reminiscence group. Later he served as director of technical planning for the corporate’s analysis division. He additionally was a marketing consultant to IBM’s analysis director.
He took a depart of absence in 1974 to guide a examine by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences on motorized vehicle emissions and gas economic system. He returned to the corporate the next 12 months to analysis reminiscence applied sciences. He developed bubble reminiscence, a sort of nonvolatile laptop reminiscence that makes use of a skinny movie of a magnetic materials to carry small magnetized areas often called bubbles or domains. Every area shops one bit of knowledge, the smallest unit of digital data.
Starting within the early Eighties, Pugh labored on IBM’s technical historical past undertaking, authoring or coauthoring four books on the corporate and its technical developments.
He retired in 1993.
A long time of service
Pugh joined IEEE within the mid-Sixties and was an lively volunteer.
He served as 1973 president of the IEEE Magnetics Society. He was the editor of IEEE Transactions on Magnetics in 1968.
He was Division IV director and vp of IEEE Technical Activities.
In 1989 he was elected IEEE president. Throughout his time period, he oversaw revisions to the IEEE Code of Ethics and the opening of the IEEE Operations Middle, in Piscataway, N.J.
The IEEE Historical past Middle in 2019 established the Pugh Young Scholar in Residence internship, named after him and his spouse, Elizabeth. College students finding out the historical past of know-how or engineering can grow to be a analysis fellow on the heart and obtain a stipend of US $5,000.
Pugh was lively in a number of different organizations. He served on the United Engineering board of trustees, for instance, and he was a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Amongst his recognitions had been a 1992 IEEE-USA literary award, the 1991 IEEE Magnetics Society Achievement Award, and a 1990 Carnegie Mellon Alumni Affiliation achievement award.
