Lauded inventor West reflects on life, successes

By: MING WEN

Posted: 9/20/07

Growing up, James West was prone to the common childhood affliction of taking apart everything he could get his hands on as an attempt to satisfy his insatiable curiosity.

"Model airplanes were a big favorite. If I had a dollar I knew exactly where I'd spend it," West said. Sometimes this got him in trouble, such as when he was shocked by 120 volts from a repaired radio he tried to plug in.

West's enduring love of tinkering has paid off: this past July, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology for his co-invention of the electret microphone. Ninety-five percent of the two billion microphones produced annually are electret microphones, which are preferred for their small size, low cost and high fidelity.

"Receiving the National Medal of Technology is awesome," West said. "That's an award that millions of people would like to have, and I was fortunate enough to get it; I'm still on a cloud." He received the award from President Bush at a special White House ceremony.

West worries, however, that his childhood love is not possible for children today. "Unfortunately, there are very few things that you can take apart these days," he said.

Because of this, West is working with the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, of which he is an inductee, to launch an advertising campaign to engage children in tinkering. "You can teach an awful lot of science through sports, through many of the things that kids want to be when they grow up. But they only see this on the surface, and so these are the kinds of things we want to try to make interactive and bring to kids, because that is sorely missing," he said.

West believes strongly in nurturing childhood curiosity by not letting it die at a young age. "Go to any six-, seven- or eight-year-old, and they have loads and loads of questions, and loads of ideas and thought," he said. "By the time they're 15, all of that is gone, and the reason it is is because it's not nurtured, it's not supported."

At Temple University, West's first experiences were as a pre-med, but he ultimately pursued a career in physics. "My family thought I was making a big mistake, but I'm stubborn and I decided that I was going to do what I wanted to do and take whatever consequences that led to."

At Bell Labs West was involved in finding a more accurate, noninvasive method of measuring blood pressure. "Your past always affects your future, maybe that's one of the reasons that I looked toward what I do in medicine," he said.

West is currently pursuing three areas of research at Hopkins. The first, working with piezoelectric materials in bioactive applications, could result in advanced sensors to detect onset of cardiac failure.

The second intelligent, immersive collaboration aims to use the Internet to drastically improve the way we work long-distance with colleagues.

His third project involves investigating methods of reducing noise by installing special sound-absorbing panels in the walls and ceiling of hospitals. The project is currently an active experiment at Johns Hopkins Hospital. West hopes lower noise levels will allow patients to get the one treatment they often need most: sleep.

When asked about his plans for the future, he said, "What I do tomorrow depends on what happens today. I can guarantee that it'll be some form of technology research. I love options and the ability to decide at the moment what I'm going to do. I hate vacations. One thing that you can almost guarantee is that I'll be working somewhere."

West has the following advice for Hopkins students: "One of the most important things in life is to follow your dreams; if you do, you wind up a lot happier. I love to work. I could have retired 12 years ago, and I'm still here."