Dugald Caleb Jackson (February 13, 1865 – July 1, 1951) was an American electrical engineer. He received the IEEE Edison Medal for "outstanding and inspiring leadership in engineering education and in the field of generation and distribution of electric power".[1]
After two years teaching electrical engineering at Cornell University he moved to the University of Wisconsin in 1891 as the first professor of Electrical Engineering, heading the Department of Electrical Engineering. He specialized in alternating currents and associated machinery alongside technical issues involved in running central stations as independent power stations were known at the time.[2]
At MIT
Jackson headed the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1907 to 1935.[3] He was proponent of student and faculty involvement with industry.[3] Jackson established research as a part of engineering education at MIT and coordinated it with practical experience in industrial settings (for example, with the General Electric Company), and his model spread widely.[3][4]
On April 3, 1911, Jackson participated in a conference at the Hotel Thorndike, in Boston encouraging closer co-operation between electric vehicle manufacturers and central station managers in the Boston area. The conference was organized by the Boston Edison Company and Jackson promised the support of the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in providing scientific research to support the development of the electric vehicle industry.[5]
^Carlson, W. Bernard (1988). "Academic Entrepreneurship and Engineering Education: Dugald C. Jackson and the MIT-GE Cooperative Engineering Course, 1907–1932". Technology and Culture. 29 (3): 536–567. doi:10.2307/3105273. JSTOR3105273. S2CID113017673.
