author
Michael Pupin
1858–1935
An immigrant who arrived in America as a teenager, he went on to become a celebrated inventor, physicist, and memoirist. Best known for work that helped make long-distance telephone communication practical, he also wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography.
1 Audiobook
From Immigrant to Inventor
by Michael Pupin
About the author
Born in Idvor, in what is now Serbia, Michael Pupin came to the United States in 1874 and built an extraordinary career through study and persistence. He graduated from Columbia College, later earned a doctorate in Berlin, and returned to Columbia University, where he taught mathematical physics for many years.
Pupin is best remembered for inventions and research that improved electrical communication, especially the loading coils that extended the range of telephone transmission. He also worked on related problems in telegraphy, electrical tuning, and X-ray research, becoming one of the notable scientific figures of his era.
He was more than a laboratory scientist. His autobiography, From Immigrant to Inventor, won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1924 and helped introduce his life story to a wide audience. That combination of technical achievement and personal storytelling makes him an especially memorable author as well as an inventor.