Macovski, Albert
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Albert Macovski, the Canon USA Professor of Engineering, Emeritus has been affiliated with Stanford since 1960, first as a research engineer and staff scientist at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and then as a faculty member with expertise in medical imaging and a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Department of Radiology. In this oral history, Macovski talks about his family background and growing up in New York City in the 1930s. Among other things, he describes his father’s work as a jeweler, the impact of the Great Depression on his family, attending the New York World’s Fair, and his interest in ham radio. Macovski recalls his studies in electrical engineering at City College of New York during the immediate post-war period and the significant change in his life occasioned by meeting his future wife, Adelaide “Addie” Paris. He describes obtaining a job at RCA Laboratories upon graduating from college and what it was like to work in the early television industry, including trying to solve problems related to synchronization and color television broadcasting. Macovski talks about pursuing his master’s degrees at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and then working as an assistant professor there. He relates the factors that influenced his decision to accept a job at SRI: a desire to get his PhD, wanting to be where the action in electronics was, and the favorable climate. Describing the environment at SRI in the 1960s, Macovski discusses his work on the Nimbus weather satellite and his invention of the single tube color camera. He describes the process of earning his PhD through Stanford’s Honors Coop Program, his dissertation on holography, and a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health that allowed him to study in the Department of Radiology at the University of California San Francisco. He goes on to describe joining the faculty at Stanford and his varied research projects, including work on ultrasonic array, recording images of the beating heart, and developing techniques to differentiate between hard and soft tissue. He also discusses a project to image the coronary arteries. Macovski recounts the story of how a sabbatical year offered him the chance to study magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and to work with Godfrey Hounsfield at the Medical Physics Department of Hammersmith Hospital. He describes obtaining an MRI system from General Electric and the process of getting it installed on campus. Macovksi also discusses his approach to working with graduate students and offers reflections on the process of commercializing technology and obtaining patents. He concludes the interview with comments on new directions in the field of medical imaging and on his decision to endow a chair in the Electrical Engineering Department.
Description
| Type of resource | mixed material |
|---|---|
| Date created | February 2, 2016 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Macovski, Albert | |
|---|---|---|
| Contributing author | Marine-Street, Natalie J. | |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
| Subject | Albert Macovski |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford Historical Society |
| Subject | oral histories |
| Subject | interviews |
| Subject | higher education |
| Subject | professors |
| Subject | medical imaging |
| Subject | magnetic resonance imaging |
| Subject | television > transmitters and transmission |
| Subject | television cameras |
| Subject | x-ray imaging |
| Subject | Stanford Research Institute (SRI) |
| Subject | Stanford University > Department of Electrical Engineering |
| Subject | Stanford University > Magnetic Resonance Systems Research Laboratory |
| Subject | universities and colleges > research |
| Subject | universities and colleges > faculty |
| Subject | universities and colleges > graduate work |
Bibliographic information
| Related item |
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|---|---|
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/xc330ny0211 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
Macovski, Albert. Oral
History (2016). Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program Interviews (SC0932).
Department of Special Collections & University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/xc330ny0211
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
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