James S. Thorp '59, M.S. '61, Ph.D. '62 and a former Cornell faculty member, is a winner of the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

Arun G. Phadke, a professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, also received the medal this year.

A former director of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell, where he worked for 42 years, Thorp joined Phadke in 2004 at Virginia Tech, where he is the Hugh P. and Ethel C. Kelley Professor and head of the department of electrical and computer engineering.

The longtime collaborators received the award for their "pioneering contributions to the development and application of microprocessor controllers in electric power systems." These devices make synchronized measurements to monitor and protect components throughout the power grid, playing a key role in diminishing the frequency and impact of blackouts.

Phadke and Thorp helped develop hardware and software that led to widespread industry use of a new kind of protective relay. Until the early 1980s, protective relays had limited abilities. Phadke and Thorp recognized that, by using a computer in place of the electromechanical heart of the original relay, the new device could do more than just monitor and record. Computer-based relays scattered around the grid could act as individual intelligent units to diagnose problems, communicate them to a central hub and adapt.

Phadke and Thorp also tied these relays to a GPS clock. The subsequent precise synchronization helps provide a wide-area snapshot of the grid, a key tool to protect against blackouts when the power grid is under stress.

For 182 years, the Franklin Institute has presented awards to individuals whose great innovation has benefited humanity, advanced science, launched new fields of inquiry and deepened the understanding of the universe.