He was a key leader in the development of radar in World War II, director of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory development of the electronic Distant Early Warning and SAGE continental air defense systems, and first chairman of The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.
In 1930 he received the BS in mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and, after serving two years with Bell Telephone Laboratories, an MS in physics there (1934).
Lincoln Lab was formed in 1951 at the request of the government, and Dr. Hill became its second director, leading the development of the computerized SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) air defense system and the DEW line of radar sets stretching from northern Alaska to Greenland.
He helped establish in 1955 the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe) Technical Center in The Hague and the NATO Communications Line, extending from northern Norway to eastern Turkey.
In May 1970, MIT formally divested itself of the Instrumentation Lab, which under the direction of Charles Stark Draper had developed the gyroscope and the inertial guidance system and had guided Apollo XI to the moon in July 1969.