Education
Born in Clarence, Nova Scotia, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy at Yale University with a dissertation on the first measurements of the Stark effect in Helium.
Born in Clarence, Nova Scotia, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy at Yale University with a dissertation on the first measurements of the Stark effect in Helium.
In 1924 he gained an appointment as assistant professor at McGill University in Montreal, where he taught physics. He became associate professor in 1930. During World World War II he served as a liaison officer for the National Research Council, working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-run Radiation Laboratory on radar research and development.
He developed a fast-scan radar antenna that became known as the "Foster scanner".
He returned to McGill in 1944, where he directed the construction of a 100-MeV cyclotron. This instrument was commissioned in 1949.
At the time this was the second largest in the world. From 1952 until 1954 he was chairman of the physics department at McGill.
He died in Berkeley, California.
The John Stuart Foster Radiation Laboratory and Cyclotron at McGill was named after him in 1964 and this is engraved on the side of the building now known as the M. H. Wong Building.
Royal Society.