Atanasoff, John V. (John Vincent)

John V. Atanasoff, 1903-1995. Received B.S. in electrical engineering from University of Florida (1925), an M.S. in mathematics from Iowa State University (1926) and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin (1930). He returned to Iowa State University in 1930 and taught both physics and mathematics. In 1942 he left Iowa State to join the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, but remained a professor in absentia until 1945. He left government work in 1952 to establish a consulting firm, Ordinance Engineering Corp., which he sold to Aerojet General in 1957, and became vice president of Aerojet General. In the course of his career, he obtained 32 patents for a wide variety of inventions, including several in the field of acoustics.