Ray Dolby
Founder and Director Emeritus

Ray Dolby, Founder and Director Emeritus of Dolby Laboratories, Inc., was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1933. From 1949 to 1952, he worked on various audio and instrumentation projects at Ampex Corporation, where, from 1952 to 1957, he was mainly responsible for the development of the electronic aspects of the Ampex® videotape recording system. In 1957, Ray received a BS degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Upon being awarded a Marshall Scholarship and a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship, he left Ampex for further study at Cambridge University in England. He received a PhD degree in physics from Cambridge in 1961 and was elected a Research Fellow of Pembroke College (Honorary Fellow, 1983). During his last year at Cambridge, he was also a consultant to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.

In 1963, Ray took up a two-year appointment as a United Nations advisor in India, and then returned to England in 1965 to establish Dolby Laboratories in London. In 1976, he moved to San Francisco, where his company established further offices, laboratories, and manufacturing facilities. Ray served as chairman of Dolby’s Board of Directors from 1965 until 2009, and he retired from the board in 2011. He holds more than 50 US patents, and has written papers on videotape recording, long-wavelength X-ray analysis, and noise reduction.

Ray’s pioneering work in noise reduction and later in surround sound has earned extensive recognition worldwide. Honors and awards he has received include:

Fellowships and Honorary Membership

Audio Engineering Society (AES)

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

British Kinematograph Sound and Television Society

Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)

Royal Academy of Engineering

Awards

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Scientific and Engineering Award; Academy Award® of Merit (Oscar®)

National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences: Emmy® Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement; Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development; Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award

AES: Silver and Gold Medal Awards

SMPTE: Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal Award; Alexander M. Poniatoff Gold Medal; Progress Medal

IEEE: Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award; Edison Medal

American Electronics Association: David Packard Medal of Achievement

Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame

National Inventors Hall of Fame

Médaille du Festival de Cannes

Berlinale Camera

Honorary Degrees and National Recognition

US National Medal of Technology

Doctor of Science, Cambridge University

Doctor of the University, University of York

Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE)

Ray makes his home in San Francisco with his wife, Dagmar Dolby. Ray and Dagmar have two sons, Tom and David.

Technical Papers by Ray Dolby

A Noise Reduction System for Consumer Tape Recording

A 20 dB Audio Noise Reduction System for Consumer Applications