John Maxwell Cohn is an International Business Machines Corporation Fellow and chief scientist of design automation at International Business Machines Corporation.
Education
Cohn received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and earned a Doctor of Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University as part of the International Business Machines Corporation Resident Study Program.
Career
Cohn has been an innovator in the area of design automation for both analog and digital custom integrated circuits. Cohn has 60 patents issued or pending in the field of design automation, methodology, and circuits. In 2002 Cohn was elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in recognition to contribution to the high performance custom circuit design automation.
Cohn has authored more than 30 technical papers and has contributed to four books on design automation.
Life and career
Cohn was born February 9, 1959 in Manhattan, New New York In a brief November 8, 2013 interview in Rutland, Vermont, Cohn stated that, despite some sources, he was in fact born in New York, rather than Houston, where he moved when he was three.
Cohn is active in education issues at a local, state and national level He is an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at the University of Vermont and has taught part-time at both high school and elementary school levels.
Cohn has been active for many years in National Engineering Week.
He co-chairs International Business Machines Corporation’s corporate-wide Technical Education Outreach Steering Committee. He also serves on the science education standards committee for the state of Vermont. Cohn frequently takes his traveling "Jolts and Volts" electricity show to schools, community groups, universities and museums across the United States including such diverse venues as the New York Hall of Science, The National Building Museum in Washington, District of Columbia and frequent shows at Disney"s Epcot Center in Florida.
His education program has been covered by Cable News Network, Columbia Broadcasting System, American Broadcasting Company, National Broadcasting Company, EETimes, USAToday and other newspapers across the United States. Cohn lives in a restored schoolhouse in Northern Vermont with his family.
He is eager to share his love of science and engineering with anyone who will listen. In 2009, Cohn appeared on the Discovery Channel show The Colony.
A simulated life after a global catastrophe based in downtown Los Los Angeles Cohn implemented his abundant knowledge of engineering throughout the series, including.
A Tesla coil, soap, spark-gap transmitter, solar tracking device, wood gasifier, electric vehicle, flamethrower, and many other useful devices.
In October 2013 Cohn was a presenter at a TEDx conference. TEDxDelft 2013 was themed "Do try this at home" and Cohn"s talk was titled "The importance of play".