
james john smith

james john smith (24 june 1892, clonmel, county tipperary, to october 1983, westchester, ny) was an irish applied mathematician and electrical engineer whose career was mostly spent at general electric (ge) in (schenectady, ny).
his father christopher smith was an inspector of schools, so the family moved a lot, and james grew up in part in cork city. he earned a diploma in engineering from the royal college of science in dublin, and then two master's from university college dublin (ucd), first in maths (1913) and then in maths physics and experimental physics (1914). 
after a brief period at siemens brothers dynamo works in stafford, england, he relocated to the usa, and started work at general electric in schenectady. in 1919, he earned another master's, this time in electrical engineering, from union college nearby, and spend the period 1920-1923 teaching there, while earning his phd (awarded 1923). the rest of his career was spent at ge.
he published mathematical papers on and off for several decades, and spoke twice at the international congress of mathematics (icm). he was an invited speaker of the icm in 1928 at bologna, italy with the talk "heaviside's operators and contour integrals" and in 1932 at zurich with the talk "an expression of green's function in generalized coordinates".

