James S. Thorp (February 7, 1937 – May 2, 2018)[1] was the head of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech.[2] He was the Hugh P. and Ethel C. Kelly Professor Emeritus & Research Professor.[3] He received all his degrees (B.S. 1959, M.S. 1961, and Ph.D. 1962) from Cornell University. Professor Thorp was a teacher, a researcher, and for many years served as the director, in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell, where he worked for 42 years: 1962–2004.
Along with fellow Virginia Tech professor Arun G. Phadke, Thorp received The Franklin Institute's 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering[4] for their contributions to the power industry, particularly microprocessor controllers in electric power systems that have significantly decreased the occurrence and duration of power blackouts.[5] He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1996 for his "contributions to the development of digital techniques for power system protection, monitoring, and control"[6] and also was an IEEE Fellow (since 1989).