E. Roy John

Erwin Roy John (1924–2009) was a pioneer in the field of quantitative electroencephalography and neurometrics.

Erwin (E.) Roy John was born on August 14, 1924 in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. During the Great Depression he was a union organizer in an airplane plant. His attendance at City College of New York was interrupted by World War II, where he volunteered and served in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he attended University of Chicago earning a BA in physics and a PhD in psychology. He began work on brain research at UCLA and later founded brain research laboratories at the University of Rochester and at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital. He was also a professor of psychiatry at NYU and a research scientist at the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research. His work led to more than 25 patents in medical technology.

The field of neurometrics was invented by Dr. John. He also did fundamental work on memory, originating the idea that memory was distributed throughout the brain.

He was a developer of quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) and, together with his colleagues, developed algorithms that let QEEG be used to measure many psychological and mental problems.

Dr. John founded Brain Research Laboratories at NYU School of Medicine in 1974. He served as its director for over 30 years. Research he led at BRL led to advances in the diagnosis and treatment of coma, learning disabilities, autism and brain injury from blast damage or repeated concussion.

Dr. John was interested in politics from childhood; in college, he founded a group to oppose McCarthyism; he was involved in the opposition to the Vietnam War and made frequent visits to Cuba.