James Hillier
| James Hillier | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
August 22, 1915 Brantford, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | January 15, 2007 (aged 91) Princeton, New Jersey |
| Citizenship | Canadian American |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Institutions | RCA |
| Alma mater | University of Toronto |
| Known for | Commercializing the electron microscope President of the Electron Microscope Society of America (1945) |
| Notable awards |
Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1960) IEEE Founders Medal (1981) |
James Hillier, OC (August 22, 1915 – January 15, 2007) was a Canadian-American scientist and inventor who designed and built, with Albert Prebus, the first successful high-resolution electron microscope in North America in 1938.
Born in Brantford, Ontario, the son of James and Ethel (Cooke) Hillier, he received a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and Physics (1937), Master of Arts (1938), and a Ph.D (1941) from the University of Toronto, where, as a graduate student, he completed a prototype of the electron microscope that had been invented by Ernst Ruska. This transmission electron microscope was used as a prototype for later electron microscopes.
In 1941, he went to the United States of America and joined the Radio Corporation of America in Camden, New Jersey. He became General Manager, RCA Laboratories (1957); Vice President, RCA Laboratories (1958); Vice President, Research and Engineering (1968); Executive Vice President, Research and Engineering (1969); and Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist (1976). New technologies developed during his tenure include the system that became RCA SelectaVision. (Note: RCA Laboratories, located in Princeton, NJ, became independent of RCA as a result of the corporate take-over by General Electric in 1986 and became Sarnoff Corporation, a subsidiary of SRI International through 2011, when it was absorbed by SRI.) Hillier spent many years refining the electron microscope and marketing it to research laboratories and universities, receiving a total of 41 patents for devices and processes.
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