2008 News Releases

IEEE Medal of Honor Recipient Amos E. Joel Dies at 90

4 November—IEEE Fellow Amos E. Joel, an IEEE Medal of Honor award recipient, died 25 October at the age of 90. He worked at Bell Labs for 43 years until he retired in 1983. At Bell, he designed the first automatic telephone billing equipment, a switching device that allows cell phone users to make uninterrupted calls while moving from one cell region to another.  Joel served as president of the IEEE Communications Society from 1974-1975. He received the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1992 for "fundamental contributions to and leadership in telecommunications switching systems." He was also one of the recipients of IEEE’s first Alexander Graham Bell award in 1976.