Vladimir K. Zworykin
RCA Corporation
July 30, 1889 - July 29, 1982
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Scientific Discipline: Engineering Sciences Membership Type:
Member
(elected 1943)
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Vladimir Zworykin’s work as an electrical engineer during the mid-twentieth century led to the field that we now know as “electronics.” He and members of his laboratory are credited with inventing technology for modern television, microscopy, computers, medical devices, transportation, and numerous other machines that have had a profound effect on civilization.
Born and raised in Russia, Zworykin studied electrical engineering and x-ray diffraction before he joined the Russian Army Civil Corps during World War I. He left Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution and travelled internationally, eventually settling in the United States. Zworykin obtained U.S. citizenship in 1924 and earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 1926.
The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) hired Zworykin as director of its Electronic Research Laboratory in 1929. When he officially retired from RCA in 1954, he was named an honorary vice president of the company. (He continued to consult with RCA until he was more than 90 years old.) After his retirement, Zworykin expanded the scope of his work to include teaching at the University of Miami, lecturing internationally, and directing a medical electronics center at the Rockefeller Institute in New York.
Zworykin is credited as inventor or co-inventor on more than 120 U.S. patents. He was the recipient of 29 major scientific awards—notably, the National Medal of Science, given by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966—and he was a member of 21 scientific and technical societies, including the National Academy of Sciences.
