John Robinson Pierce, was an American engineer and author. He worked extensively in the fields of radio communication, microwave technology, computer music, psychoacoustics, and science fiction. John Robinson Pierce, the father of communications satellites and a writer of science fiction who came to Stanford to pursue his longtime interests in computer music and psychoacoustics Pierce was born on 27 March 1910 in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of a traveling salesman. He received the National Medal Of Science in 1963. He died on April 2, 2002 (aged 92) in Sunnyvale, California.