Featuring George Edward Alcorn

By Akaylah Hayes
George Edward Alcorn’s childhood
George Edward Alcorn, Jr. was born on March 22, 1940. His father was an auto
mechanic who sacrificed so Alcorn and his brother could get an education. Alcorn
attended Occidental College in Pasadena, California, where he maintained an excellent
academic record while earning eight letters in baseball and football. Alcorn graduated
with a B.A. in physics in 1962, and in 1963 he completed a master's degree in nuclear
physics from Howard University. During the summers of 1962 and 1963, Alcorn worked
as a research engineer for the Space Division of North American Rockwell, computing
trajectories and orbital mechanics for missiles. A NASA grant supported Alcorn's research
on negative ion formation during the summers of 1965 and 1966. In 1967 he earned his
doctorate from Howard University in atomic and molecular physics.

George Edward Alcorns After job

After earning his Ph.D., Alcorn spent twelve years in industry. He was senior
scientist at Philco-Ford, senior physicist at Perker-Elmer, and advisory engineer at IBM
Corporation. In 1973, Alcorn was chosen to be IBM Visiting Professor in Electrical
Engineering at Howard University, and he has held positions at that university ever since,
rising to the rank of full professor. Alcorn is also a full professor in the department of
electrical engineering at the University of the District of Columbia, where he has taught
courses ranging from advanced engineering mathematics to microelectronics.

George Edward Alcorn’s Inventions

Alcorn left IBM, where he worked as a Second Plateau Inventor, to join NASA in
1978. While at NASA, Alcorn invented an imaging x-ray spectrometer using
thermomigration of aluminum, for which he earned a patent in 1984, and two years later
he devised an improved method of fabrication using laser drilling. His work on imaging
x-ray spectrometers earned him the 1984 NASA/GSFC Inventor of the Year Award. He
managed a shuttle flight experiment that involved Robot Operated Material Processing
System, or ROMPs, in 1994. The experiment involved the manufacture of materials in
the microgravity of space.
bibliography
http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/p
hysics/alcorn_georgeE.html

http://www.uky.edu/StudentOrgs/A
WARE/archives/invent.html

http://www.black-
inventor.com/George-Alcorn.asp