Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 – January 31, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. Armstrong was the inventor of modern frequency modulation

Frequency modulation

In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This contrasts with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant...

 (FM) radio.

Edwin Howard Armstrong was born in New York City, New York, in 1890. He studied at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 where he was a member of the Epsilon Chapter of the Theta Xi

Theta Xi

Theta Xi was founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York on 29 April 1864. Theta Xi Fraternity was originally founded as an engineering fraternity, the first professional fraternity...

 Fraternity. He later became a professor at Columbia University.