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2005 Kyoto Prize Laureates
Advanced Technology Category
Prize Field: Electronics
"For pioneering contributions to the realization of flat-panel displays using liquid crystals."
Dr. George H. Heilmeier
Date of Birth: May 22, 1936
Nationality: U.S.A.
Background: In the 1960s, when the concept of a "wall-hanging TV" was still a distant dream, Dr. Heilmeier developed an interest in the unique properties of liquid crystals, and used them to fabricate flat displays capable of showing alphanumeric characters. These displays, announced in 1968, caused a global sensation, triggering the development of LCDs and intense competition to put them to use in industrial applications. Later, LCDs were combined with large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs), which evolved during the same period, giving rise to great innovations in the consumer electronics industry. Today, LCDs are seen in televisions, PCs, mobile phones, PDAs and countless other essential home appliances and industrial systems. Dr. Heilmeier's pioneering contributions facilitated this recent revolution in display technology. His achievements have thus had a major impact and will be justly remembered by posterity as milestones in the history of technical progress.
| Brief Biography |
| 1936 |
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. |
| 1958 |
University of Pennsylvania, B.S. (Electrical Engineering) |
| 1962 |
Princeton University, Ph.D. (Electronics) |
| 1958-1966 |
Technical Staff, RCA Laboratories |
| 1966-1969 |
Director of Solid State Device Research, RCA Laboratories |
| 1969-1970 |
Director of Device Concepts, RCA Laboratories |
| 1970-1971 |
White House Fellow; Special Assistant to U.S. Secretary of Defense |
| 1971-1974 |
Assistant Director of Defense Research &Engineering, Department of Defense |
| 1974-1977 |
Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) |
| 1977-1983 |
Vice President, Texas Instruments Inc. |
| 1983-1991 |
Senior Vice President and CTO, Texas Instruments Inc. |
| 1991-1996 |
President and CEO, Bell Communications Research Inc. |
| 1996-1997 |
Chairman and CEO, Bell Communications Research Inc. |
| 1997-present |
Chairman Emeritus, Telcordia Technologies Inc. |
| Selected Awards and Honors |
| 1976 |
David Sarnoff Award, IEEE |
| 1990 |
C&C Prize, NEC |
| 1991 |
President's National Medal of Science, U.S.A. |
| 1992 |
National Academy of Engineering Founders Award, U.S.A. |
| 1996 |
John Scott Award for Scientific Achievements, City of Philadelphia |
| 1997 |
Medal of Honor, IEEE |
| 1999 |
John Fritz Award, American Association of Engineering Societies |
| Member |
National Academy of Engineering, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and IEEE Fellow |
| Selected Awards and Honors |
| 1966 |
Possible Ferroelectric Effects in Liquid Crystals and Related Liquids (Williams R. and Heilmeier G. H.), Journal of Chemical Physics, 44, 638. |
| 1968 |
Dynamic Scattering: A New Electrooptic Effect in Certain Classes of Nematic Liquid Crystals (Heilmeier G. H., Zanoni L. A. and Barton L. A.), Proceedings of the IEEE, 56, 1162. |
| 1970 |
Liquid Crystal Display Devices, Scientific American, 222, 100. |
| 1976 |
Liquid Crystal Displays: An Experiment in Interdisciplinary Research that Worked, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, ED-23, 780. |
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