Dr. John Cohn

Dr. John Cohn is not your everyday mad scientist.

An IBM Fellow and Chief Scientist of Design Automation at IBM, John Cohn has been an innovator in the area of design automation for integrated circuits and has more than 50 patents issued or pending in the field of design automation, methodology and circuits. He has authored more than 30 technical papers, has contributed to four books and is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and the Vice President Americas for the IBM Academy of Technology.

But when he’s not helping IBM design a “Smarter Planet,” he dedicates himself to promoting science and engineering. He has taught part time at university, high school and elementary school levels and has performed his Jolts and Volts electricity show for more than 50,000 people across the US. In fact he is so passionate about promoting science and engineering that he spent 58 days living and inventing in an abandoned steel mill as part of Discovery Channel’s new technical survival show The Colony, which describes him as “an expert in many areas, including fixing, making or hacking anything electronic, building structures out of natural materials, tying knots, growing edible plants, mechanical fabrication, welding, sculpting and fire building.”

Dr. Cohn received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering at MIT in 1981, and earned a Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University in 1991.