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American engineer and educator known as the creator of the red light-emitting diode (LED) in 1962. He was the John Bardeen Endowed Chair Emeritus in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Nick Holonyak Jr was born on 3 Nov 1928 in Zeigler, Illinois to Rusyn immigrants. His father was likely named Nick Holonyak Sr and worked in the coal mines of Southern Illinois. His father emigrated in the 1900s from a poverty-stricken coal mining area in the Carpathian Mountains (in what is now Lvivska, Ukraine). Nick Sr. arrived in Baltimore with $2 US to his name. His father survived the 1914 mine explosion at Royalton, Illinois.[1]
Nick Jr was a "gandy dancer" with the Illinois Central Railroad but left due to unreasonable hours (10 hours a day and six days a week for 65 cents an hour).[1]. Holonyak earned his bachelor's (1950), master's (1951), and doctoral (1954) degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In 1955, Nick Jr. married Katherine "Kay" Jerger. He passed away on 16 Sep 2022 in Urbana, Illinois. His wife survived him.[1]
Awards and Honors
- National Academy of Engineering (1973)
- National Academy of Sciences (1984),
- IEEE Edison Medal (1989)
- National Medal of Science (1990)
- Japan Prize (1995) [2]
- National Medal of Technology (2002)
- IEEE Medal of Honor (2003)
- Global Energy Prize (2003)
- Lemelson-MIT Prize (2004)
- National Inventors Hall of Fame (2008)
- Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2021), presented by Queen Elizabeth II of England herself.[1]
Sources
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Nick Holonyak Jr., who made an LED breakthrough, dies at 93 on Washington Post
- ↑ Laureates of the Japan Prize, 1995
- Nick Holonyak on Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
- Faculty Page at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Nick Holonyak Jr. on Brittanica
- Ahlberg Touchstone, Liz , "Nick Holonyak Jr., pioneer of LED lighting, dies" , University of Illinois News Bureau, September 18, 2022,