James Fergason

James Lee Fergason (January 12, 1934 – December 9, 2008) was an American inventor and business entrepreneur. A member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Fergason is best known for his work on an improved liquid crystal display, or LCD. He held over one hundred U.S. patents at the time of his death.

Early life and education James Lee "Jim" Fergason was born on a farm near the small town of Wakenda, Carroll County, Missouri.

He was educated in a one-room schoolhouse until the 7th grade when his family moved to the county seat of Carrollton. The Fergason family had something of a reputation for educational over achievement. One grandfather graduated from college at age fifteen, while two of Fergason's older brothers studied chemical engineering and electrical engineering respectively. A cousin was an agricultural engineer who had over 100 patents for his machinery inventions.

Following his graduation from Carrollton High School in 1952 he enrolled at the University of Missouri, earning a Bachelor's Degree in physics in 1956. Fergason married his wife Dora the week after graduation from Mizzou, then reported for a brief tour of duty as a second lieutenant with the United States Army in Texas.

In June 1966, Fergason joined the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University as its associate director. Here, in 1969, he made his seminal discovery of a low-power, field-operated liquid crystal display, known as the twisted nematic cell, and received a patent. There was a controversy about this invention. The inventors Martin Schadt and Wolfgang Helfrich of Hoffmann-La Roche had filed a Swiss patent application for the same invention at an earlier international priority date than Fergason in 1970. However, a US patent was granted to Fergason due to a predated US patent notebook entry in 1970. All three were awarded the IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal in 2008 for this invention. Also at LCI, Fergason was part of an effort to use cholesteric liquid crystals for thermal mapping, in particular, to screen for breast cancer. He participated in the discovery of smectic C liquid crystal phase. and in 2008 he received the Jun-Ichi Nishizawa Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Death Fergason died at age 74 in Menlo Park. He was survived by his wife Dora and their four children, Teresa, Jeffrey, John and Susan, and his 11 grandchildren.