Description

Black and white photograph of Claude Elwood Shannon sitting at his desk and smiling at the camera. A long narrow window is visible behind him.

Original caption: "Dr. Claude E. Shannon, an internationally renowned scientist in the field of information theory, has been named to the newly-established Donner Chair of Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The new professorship was made possible by $500,000 grant by the Donner Foundation of Philadelphia, the largest ever received by MIT for endowment of an academic chair.

A mathematician and electrical engineer, Dr. Shannon's work in information theory - a branch of science combining mathematics, communications, computing and automation - has resulted in automatic telephone systems and improved systems for transmitting coded messages.

Dr. Shannon graduated from the University of Michigan in 1936 and received an S.M. in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT in 1940. He was with the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Princeton N.J., before joining the MIT faculty in 1956."

Used in: Boston Herald, October 12 1958.