Samuel Mason

Background

He was born in New York City, but he grew up in a small town in New Jersey.

Education

Mason went on to earn his South.M. and Doctor of Philosophy in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1947 and 1952, respectively.

Career

Mason"s invariant and Mason"s rule are named after him. lieutenant was so small, in fact, that it only had a population of 26. He received a Bachelor of Surgery in electrical engineering from Rutgers University in 1942, and after graduation, he joined the Antenna Group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory as a staff member.

Mason served on the faculty of Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1949 until his death in 1974 – as an assistant professor in 1949, associate professor in 1954, and full professor in 1959.

Mason unexpectedly died in 1974 due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Mason"s doctoral dissertation, supervised by Ernst Guillemin, was on signal-flow graphs and he is often credited with inventing them.

Another one of his contributions to the field of control systems theory was a method to find the transfer function of a system, now known as Mason"s rule. Mason was an expert in optical scanning systems for printed materials.

He was the leader of the Cognitive Information Processing Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Laboratory of Electronics, and he created systems that scanned printed materials and read them out loud for the blind.

Similarly, he developed tactile devices powered by photocells that enabled the blind to sense light. While at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mason was also responsible for revisions to the undergraduate curriculum in electrical engineering. He implemented innovations in the teaching of electric circuit theory by co-authoring a textbook on the subject, and he introduced digital signal analysis to undergraduates, which led to a textbook as well.

Mason was also known to get students heavily involved in research, and he often had six or more doctoral candidates under his care.

His students remembered him as, "A gentle, compassionate manitoba

Membership

Had a deep, abiding interest in young people." Similarly, one of his thesis advisees said, "I came to know, admire, and respect Professor Mason as a thinker, friend, personal adviser, and confidant." Mason also served his community as the chairman of the Faculty Committee on Student Environment, a member of the Faculty Committee on Education in the Face of Poverty and Segregation, and a leader of underprivileged youth in the Upward Bound program

Connections

associate:

Research Laboratory