FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANHATTAN COLLEGE HONORED DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI ELECTED TO THE PRESTIGIOUS NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

Yorktown Heights, New York, Resident James W. Cooley Elected to NAE

RIVERDALE, N.Y. – Manhattan College has honored James W. Cooley ’49, retired researcher at IBM and award-winning engineer, at a special event on December 1, 2004. This ceremony, held at the College’s William J. Scala Academy Room, recognized distinguished alumni who were recently inducted into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for their outstanding contributions to the field. The NAE is the highest professional distinction accorded an engineer, and recognizes the individual’s contributions in engineering theory, practice and in the pioneering of new technologies.

The College also honored several members of its alumni community at the ceremony, including Thomas E. Romesser ’71 and Richard L. Tomasetti ’63, who were both recently inducted into the NAE, and engineering faculty members Dr. Moujalli Hourani and Dr. Robert Sharp, recipients of faculty fellow awards.

Mr. Cooley helped fuel the digital revolution. With co-author John W. Tukey of Princeton University, Mr. Cooley published a paper describing the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) Algorithm, which led to an explosion in digital signal processing. His landmark research offered tremendous improvements in processing speeds. Digital signal processing today is an integral part of communications, information processing and consumer electronics.

Mr. Cooley spent the majority of his professional career helping others understand the FFT algorithm and its use. He worked for years as a researcher at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Prior to IBM, Mr. Cooley worked on quantum mechanical computations at the Courant Institute in New York. Before that, he was a programmer at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he worked on computers with John von Neumann, genius scientist and early pioneer in modern computing. After his retirement from IBM in 1991, Mr. Cooley joined the department of electrical engineering at the University of Rhode Island, where he served three years on the faculty of the computer engineering program. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Manhattan College and a  master’s degree from Columbia University. He completed his doctorate in applied mathematics at Columbia.

Mr. Cooley is the recipient of countless awards and recognitions for his outstanding contributions to technology. In 2000, he was elected into the NAE and cited for the creation and development of the FFT algorithm for the time series analysis.

A plaque in honor of Mr. Cooley was unveiled at the ceremony and is now displayed in the College’s William J. Scala Academy Room at the school of engineering. His plaque joins several others lining the walls of the Scala Room. These plaques acknowledge members of the Manhattan College academic community elected to the NAE. 

Manhattan College was founded in 1853 upon the Lasallian heritage of excellence in teaching inspired by St. John Baptist de La Salle.  Manhattan College is an independent, Catholic, coeducational institution of higher learning offering more than 40 major programs of study in the areas of arts, business, education, engineering and science.  For more information about the College, visit www.manhattan.edu.

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