Alumni Hall of Fame Announces Newest Honorees

September 13, 2001

Troy, N.Y. — Ray Tomlinson, inventor of e-mail, and Alan Voorhees, world-renowned city planner, are two of eight new members of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s 2001 Alumni Hall of Fame.

The newest members will be formally inducted during a ceremony on campus Sept. 21. The accomplishments of the members of the Hall of Fame are celebrated in etched windows that line Thomsen Hall in the Darrin Communications Center on campus.

Ray Tomlinson, from Lexington, Mass., received the George R. Stibitz Computer Pioneer Award from the American Computer Museum last year, almost 30 years after he wrote what has been called the “killer application” of the Internet. Credited with inventing network electronic mail, Tomlinson is the man who put the @ sign in e-mail. He earned his bachelor’s in electrical engineering at Rensselaer in 1963.

Alan Voorhees, a former Rensselaer trustee and Alexandria, Va., resident, became one of the world’s leading city planners and traffic forecasters. For the city of Baltimore, Voorhees undertook the first application of mathematical models for forecasting traffic and published a landmark paper that has become the foundation for most traffic forecasting techniques in use today. He graduated from Rensselaer with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1947.

Other 2001 inductees are: Eben Horsford, considered “the father of American food technology,” Class of 1838; steel pioneer John Winslow, elected chair of the Rensselaer board of trustees in 1865; western railroad pioneer Edwin Crocker, Class of 1833; transcontinental railroad visionary Theodore Dehone Judah, Rensselaer student in 1837; fire-safety pioneer Frederick Grinnell, Class of 1855; and premier publisher of scientific and technical books William Wiley, Class of 1866.

In 1995, the Rensselaer Alumni Association established the Rensselaer Alumni Hall of Fame to preserve and celebrate the long and exceptional heritage of Rensselaer’s distinguished graduates. This year’s inductees to the Alumni Hall of Fame brings to 41 the total number of members to date. Since its founding in 1824, Rensselaer has graduated alumni whose contributions to society-from the railroad and bridge builders of the 19th century to today’s entrepreneurs of information technology-have changed the world. For more information on the inductees, visit http://www.rpi.edu/dept/NewsComm/sub/fame/

Contact: Jodi Ackerman
Phone: (518) 276-6531
E-mail: N/A

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