2011 ITSF Time Lord

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

David W. Allan

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Biog:

David Allen, Time Lord - ITSF 2011: Time & Sync in TelecomsDavid W. Allan was born in Mapleton, Utah on September 25, 1936. He received a B.S. degree in physics from Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, in 1960, and an M.S. degree in physics from the University of Colorado in 1965.

History & Accomplishments:

In 1960
Mr. Allan joined the Atomic Frequency and Time Standards Section of the National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, Colorado, where he worked with ammonia beam masers and related quantum electronic devices.  

1962
After 1962 Mr. Allan’s work was directed toward the development of the atomic time scale system for the National Bureau of Standards which provides the time and frequency standard for the U.S.A.  He coordinated this standard with other national and international timing centers, and provided its signal to be used to control radio stations WWV, WWVB, WWVH, GOES satellite time signals, the Automatic Computer Time System (ACTS), and to provide input to International Atomic Time (TAI) and Universal Coordinate Time (UTC) kept at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM).

1968
Mr. Allan received the Department of Commerce Silver Medal award, 29 October 1968, “for contributions to the NBS atomic time scales and the understanding of the statistics of atomic frequency standards.”  

The time scale algorithm he wrote in 1968 is still the basis of time as generated at NIST: UTC(NIST).  A member of the group working at the International Time Bureau (BIH), was a guest worker with him after he wrote this algorithm, and some of the ideas were used by this guest worker to write the time scale algorithm ALGOS, which generates time for the world: TAI and UTC.


1969
Mr. Allan received a visiting professor's grant from the Italian government to lecture and work at Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris in Torino, Italy.  


1976
In 1976 Mr. Allan was awarded the Industrial Research IR-100 award for developing a picosecond time difference instrument.  The concepts in this instrumentation were later commercialized and are now the basis for the atomic clock measurements made at NIST in Boulder, at USNO in Washington DC and at several other international timing facilities.

1978
Mr. Allan received an Air Force invention award and patent, and was invited, along with Professor Neil Ashby, to give a paper at the International Radio Scientific Union (URSI) in Helsinki on the "Practical  Implications of Relativity for a Global Coordinate Time Scale".  

1981
Mr. Allan was invited under a United Nations Development Program as a consultant to New Delhi, India

1982
Mr. Allan represented NBS as a guest scientist to give a series of lectures in the People’s Republic of China.  

1982
The Institute for Scientific Information identified one of Mr. Allan’s publications in their "Citation Classics" "as one of the most cited items in its field", only one other such paper had been cited to that date within his organization, the U.S. Dept. of Commerce.  

1984
In May 1984 Mr. Allan was the second to receive the I. I. Rabi award -- named after the Nobel Prize winner who first thought of the atomic clock, and who was the first recipient of the award.  This award was given at the annual Frequency Control Symposium “for his contribution to the measurement and characterization of precision time and frequency sources.”  

1985
In May 1985 Mr. Allan was invited to Leningrad to an International Astronomical Union (IAU) Symposium on Relativity and Celestial Mechanics to give a paper on “Coordinate Time in the Vicinity of the Earth.”  

1985
In September 1985 Mr. Allan was selected as an associate editor of Frequency and Time for one of the IEEE Transaction periodicals.  

1987
Mr. Allan was invited to give lectures in Israel and as a consultant to the Director of the National Physical Laboratory for improving the Israeli atomic time scale system.  

1988
Mr. Allan was asked to chair an international committee for interfacing the Defense Department's GPS satellite atomic clocks timing with the civilian sector throughout the world.  And

1989
In 1989 Mr. Allan was asked to chair an international committee on setting standards for improving international timing via the Global Positioning System satellites.

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