IEEE History

The American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) met in October in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Western Union’s president, Norvin Green, was the Institute’s first president, representing the telegraph industry. Charter member Thomas Alva Edison, of the lighting industry, served as a vice president.

Alexander Graham Bell, who’d famously uttered, “Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you!” in 1876 and patented his communication device the same year, served as an AIEE VP in 1884. He was president from 1891-1892, representing the telephone industry.

Italian electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi patented his wireless telegraphy and radio hit the airwaves. In 1912, the Titanic sank, the world listened, and the Institute of Radio Engineers was founded.

Edith Clarke, an MSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the first professional woman electrical engineer in America, at General Electric. Her patents included 1925’s Clarke Calculator. Her Hoover Dam turbine engineering shaped hydropower. The IEEE Fellow was also a U.S. Inventors Hall of Fame inductee.

Michael I. Pupin, a mathematical physicist, received the IRE Medal of Honor—a future IEEE top award—for innovations in electrical tuning and signalling. The native Serbian’s autobiography, From Immigrant to Inventor won the year’s Pulitzer Prize.

IEEE Fellow Grace Hopper, an Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. senior mathematician, devised the A-0 Compiler. This IEEE Milestone replaced tedious, error-prone punchcards. Now, computers could turn language into binary code.

Through the 20th Century’s first half, electricity wove its way into every corner of life, and AIEE and IRE interests increasingly overlapped. On January 1, 1963, the Societies merged to become the 150,000-member IEEE.

NASA's Deep Space Station 43 radio antenna allowed Earth-to-moon communication with Apollo astronauts. The 70-meter dish in Australia is the only antenna that can still talk to Voyager 2, in interstellar space since 2018. 

The IEEE Foundation began with a New York, NY, USA board meeting and a promise: to sustain financial support for programming and outreach. It has, for 50-plus years, funded IEEE’s global pledge to benefit humanity.

Computer-generated imagery (CGI) software Renderman brought animated film Toy Story to life. Pixar founder Steve Jobs, graphics pioneer Edwin Catmull, and computer scientists layered it with technologies that let even Woody appear “real.”

The automaker introduced the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle to Japan (the world waited until 2000). Engineered with a gasoline combustion engine and electric motor, the vehicle reduced fuel consumption and emissions.

IEEE Life Fellow and optical fibers pioneer Charles Kuen Kao accepted the Nobel Prize in Physics for “groundbreaking achievements.” The thin waveguides he helped develop let telephone, TV, and Internet transmissions move at nearly the speed of light.

Proceedings of the IEEE published its centennial issue in May. The journal celebrated with past-to-future looks at 20 technologies, from medical electronics to navigation technology and cybersecurity. 

MIT’s Mildred Dresselhaus, the “Queen of Carbon” electronics researcher, and “Hidden Figure” NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, accepted Presidential Medals of Freedom in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

When the 2020s dawned, technologists discussed man-made diamonds, bionic limbs, cryptocurrency, and an all-electric Rolls-Royce airplane. IEEE served member interests with 39 Societies and more than 300 annual conferences.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) gets high-bandwidth memory. Java turns 30, with computers still speaking its language. Methane trackers watch greenhouse gasses from above. A point-and-fly airplane trains pilots in an hour.