Daryl E. Hooper
Daryl Egbert Hooper was an electronic engineer notable for pioneering engineering at La Trobe University and heading up the GEC Research Hirst Centre in the 1980s. He is also notable for his textbook on amplifier design. Education. Hooper graduated from Melbourne High School in December 1949. He received the bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (B. Eng.) from the University of Melbourne in 1953. He completed his master of engineering (M. Eng.) at the University of Melbourne, with a 1962 thesis entitled: "The Characterization of Transistors." Career. His first appointment was as a Research Engineer with GEC  in London, there in 1956 he secured a patent for an improved transistor oscillator design. Hooper then returned to the University of Melbourne where he spent 10 years in the Electrical Engineering Department, first as a Lecturer and later as a Senior Lecturer. In 1967, he joined Plessey Pacific and subsequently was promoted to Chief Engineer of the Plessey Company in the UK, in charge of research and development. Hooper's research and teaching experience was mainly in the area of transistor theory and characterization, pulse-forming circuits, wide band amplifiers, active filters and integrated circuit design. In 1968, Edward  Moore Cherry and Daryl Hooper published their book on circuit design entitled "Amplifying Devices and Low-Pass Amplifier Design." The book ran to 1036 pages and was regarded as the premier book on the design of transistor amplifiers. In 1975, Hooper was appointed to the Tad Szental Chair in Communication Engineering at La Trobe University with the charge to establish the first engineering department at La Trobe. His Department of Communication Engineering took in its first students in 1976. Hooper left La Trobe in 1980 to take up the position of Head of one of the Laboratories of the GEC  Research Hirst Centre in Wembley, UK under the Director Derek Roberts. Subsequently, in 1983 he became Director of HRC. Death. In 1985, Hooper died suddenly at home in Tring, UK. A lecturer theatre, at La Trobe University, is named after him. A series of seminars given by graduating final year students is named in his honour. The "Hooper Memorial Prize" named after him.