John Dyson, born in August 9, 1918 in Lemmon, South Dakota to Clarence Austin and Flora Wittman Dyson. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Economics in 1940 and Electrical Engineering in 1949 from South Dakota State University. He would go on to obtain his doctorate in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois Urban Champaign in 1957.
Upon completing his doctoral degree he was appointed to a position researching radiomagnetics and antennas at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. After numerous experiments he developed the conical logarithmic spiral antenna used in radio telescopes. The log-spiral antenna has a circularly polarized receiving pattern which enables it to aim the receiving beams of the telescope.
If you want to know more you will find a list of sources below.
Archive Records:
Alumni and Faculty Biographical/Morgue File (record series 26/4/1) on Dyson
Work Cited
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Archive’s
Alumni and Faculty Biographical/Morgue File (record series 26/4/1) on Duhamel Obituary)
Kingery, Alan, Rudy D. Berg, and E. H. Schillinger. Men and Ideas in Engineering; Twelve Histories from Illinois. Urbana: Published for the College of Engineering, U of Illinois, by the U of Illinois, 1967. Print.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=14436839
