Claude Elwood Shannon was an American mathematician, electronic engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory". Shannon was born on April 30, 1916 in Petoskey, Michigan, the son of a judge and a teacher. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1936 with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and electrical engineering, Shannon obtained a research assistant’s position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, among other duties, he worked with the noted researcher Vannevar Bush, helping to set up differential equations on Bush’s differential analyzer. A summer internship at American Telephone and Telegraph’s Bell Laboratories in New York City in 1937 inspired much of Shannon’s subsequent research interests. In 1940 he earned both a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT. He joined the mathematics department at Bell Labs in 1941, where he first contributed to work on antiaircraft missile control systems. He remained affiliated with Bell Labs until 1972. Shannon became a visiting professor at MIT in 1956, a permanent member of the faculty in 1958, and professor emeritus in 1978. He received the National Medal Of Science in 1966.