Leo Leroy Beranek (born September 15, 1914) is an American acoustics expert, former MIT professor and a founder and former president of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (now BBN Technologies).
A student of piano at an early age, Beranek, growing up in Mount Vernon, Iowa, went on to study at Cornell College while working as a radio and small appliance repairman. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and went on to study at Harvard University, where he rece...
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Leo Leroy Beranek (born September 15, 1914) is an American acoustics expert, former MIT professor and a founder and former president of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (now BBN Technologies).
A student of piano at an early age, Beranek, growing up in Mount Vernon, Iowa, went on to study at Cornell College while working as a radio and small appliance repairman. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and went on to study at Harvard University, where he received a doctorate in 1940. During World War II, he managed Harvard's electro-acoustics laboratory, which designed communications and noise reduction systems for World War II aircraft, while at the same time developing other military technologies. During this time, he built the first anechoic chamber, an extremely quiet room for studying noise effects which later would inspire John Cage's philosophy of silence. Beranek remained on staff at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as professor of communications engineering from 1947 to 1958. In 1948...
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