Albert G. Hill

Albert Gordon Hill (11 January 1910-21 October 1996) was a physicist. He was a key leader in the development of radar in World War II, director of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory development of the electronic Distant Early Warning and SAGE continental air defense systems, and first chairman of The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.

Biography Hill was born in St. Louis on Jan. 11, 1910. In 1930 he received the BS in mechanical engineering from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis and, after serving two years with Bell Telephone Laboratories, an MS in physics there (1934). He received the PhD in physics from the University of Rochester in 1937 under the guidance of Lee Alvin DuBridge.

He was an instructor in physics at MIT from 1937 to 1941, when he became a staff member of the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, which was developing radar for use in World War II. Hill headed the Radio Frequency Group in the Transmitter Components division and by the end of the war was chief of the 800-person division. After the war he became associate director of the newly formed Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, and was promoted in 1949 to its director.

In 1984, the Draper Laboratory dedicated the Albert G. Hill Building at One Hampshire Street in Cambridge. Chairman, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory

Honors

Fellow of the American Physical Society, 1941 Presidential Certificate of Merit, 1948 Air Force Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, 1955 Washington University Distinguished Alumni Citation, 1955 Secretary of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, 1959