SHANNON, CLAUDE ELWOOD

born April 30, 1916, Petoskey, Mich., U.S.

died Feb. 24, 2001, Medford, Mass.

U.S. electrical engineer.

Shannon earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT in 1940. He had a long career as a research mathematician at Bell Laboratories (1941–72) and as a professor at MIT (1957–78). On the basis of his 1948 paper "The Mathematical Theory of Communication," he is considered the founder of communication theory . He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1966 and the Kyoto Prize in 1985.