William Shockley

William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American inventor, physicist, and eugenicist. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their research on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect. Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s and 1960s contributed to the development of California's Silicon Valley as a hub of electronics innovation. Despite his scientific achievements, Shockley became known for his racist views and advocacy of eugenics in his later life.