George Edward Alcorn Jr. joined NASA in 1978

 

George Edward Alcorn Jr.

Born March 22, 1940

 

X-Ray Spectrometer

US Patent No. 4,472,728

Inducted in 2015

 

 A graduate of Occidental College with a B.S. in physics, Alcorn went on to receive his M.S. and his Ph.D. from Howard University.

 

 He conducted significant work in high-performance semiconductor devices at IBM, and joined NASA in 1978 where he worked for the remainder of his career.

 

 Alcorn was a founder of Saturday Academy, a weekend math-science honors program for inner-city middle school students. 

 

He also worked to encourage and support minority Ph.D. candidates in science and engineering.