Jerome Wiesner

Jerome Bert Wiesner was a professor of electrical engineering, chosen by President John F. Kennedy as chairman of his Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). Educated at the University of Michigan, he was associate director of the university's radio broadcasting service and provided electronic and acoustical assistance to the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan. During World War II, he worked on microwave radar development at the MIT Radiation Laboratory. He worked briefly after the war at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, then returned to MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics from 1946 to 1961. After serving as Kennedy's science advisor, he returned to MIT, becoming its president from 1971 to 1980. He died at his home of heart failure.