Garwin split his early years at IBM with continuing to serve the U.S. government. He spent two terms on the President’s Science Advisory Committee, advised President Kennedy on nuclear tests in 1962, worked on troop sensors for use in Vietnam, advised President Carter on potential South African nuclear tests in 1979, and later worked on nuclear nonproliferation treaties. He even helped debunk the argument that there was a second shooter in the Kennedy assassination.
At IBM, Garwin worked on varied projects that resulted in technologies that continue to impact all our daily lives. His research into spin-echo magnetic resonance led to the first MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines. He advocated for publishing research on the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm, which has become part of the backbone of digital signal processing — which all modern telecoms, internet communication, and music streaming rely on.
Garwin also carried out seminal work in superconducting computers and silicon integrated-circuit technology. He helped develop laser printers and displays, eye-tracking inputs for computers, early printers and touchscreen monitors, and GPS technology. In his 41 years with IBM, Garwin was awarded 47 patents and published over 500 research papers.
Garwin’s life and career are as storied as they are impressive, but he remained humble about his achievements. “I’m not a philosopher,” he told IBM Research in 2018. “I’m a physicist and a technician — you have ideas or you see needs and you think about them. Mostly I’ve done that.”
When Garwin was awarded the Medal of Freedom, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna (who was then director of IBM Research), echoed that same attitude about Garwin and how many feel about their life in science at IBM. “Many of us who came to IBM in the hope that our work could make a difference — that it could impact the world in some profound way — drew our inspiration from Dick,” Krishna said. “Because that is exactly what he achieved throughout his long and brilliant career.”