Dr. West is currently Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was formally a Bell Laboratories Fellow, at Lucent Technologies. His pioneering research on charge storage and transport in polymers (the electrical analogy of a permanent magnet) led to the development of electret transducers for sound recording and voice communication. Almost 90% of all microphones built today are based on the principles first published in the early 1960s. This simple but rugged transducer is the heart of most new telephones and can be found in most microphone applications from toys to professional equipment. Dr. West holds more then 50 U.S. and about 200 foreign patents on various microphones and techniques for making polymer electrets and transducers. He was inducted into The National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1999 for the invention of the electret microphone. Dr. West is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; a Fellow, and past President, and past member of the Executive Council of Acoustical Society of America (1998-2001), and a Fellow of the IEEE. He is the recipient of an honorary Doctor of Science degree from New Jersey Institute of Technology (1997), an honorary Doctor of Engineering from Michigan State University (2006) and the National Medal of Technology (2006).