Attended University of Toronto for an undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics in 1945 and completed a Masters thesis on servomechanisms in 1948. Employed as an Instructor for the Canadian version of the GI Bill, came to MIT in 1948. Worked with Leo Beranek in Acoustics lab and completed doctorate in 1952 with a dissertation about the perception of sounds shaped by resonant circuits. A research staff member of MIT from 1952-1954, he accepted a faculty position at MIT in 1955. Promoted to Associate Professor in 1957. Worked with G. Fant while on sabbatical in Sweden in 1962 and brought back x-ray films that formed the basis for early work with Joseph Perkell. Promoted to professor in 1963. Collaborated with Dennis Klatt on pioneering speech synthesis project, Klattalk, that formed the basis of DECtalk and many of speech synthesizers in use today. Served as President of the Acoustical Society of America 1976-1977. Awarded Clarence J. LeBel professorship in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT in 1977. Received Gold medal from the Acoustical Society of America in 1995. Published Acoustic Phonetics, in 1998 that uses techniques of circuit analysis and signal processing to elucidate how a discrete linguistic representation is translated into articulatory movements so that their acoustic effects produce speech communication.