Franklin Seaney Cooper (April 29, 1908 – February 20, 1999) was an American physicist and inventor who was a pioneer in speech research.
Cooper designed other special-purpose synthesizers in the early 1950s, including Octopus, Voback, Intonator, and Alexander.
During World War II, at the request of Vannevar Bush, Cooper took a position in the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
He also returned to Washington in 1973, when he was selected to form a panel of six experts [2] charged with investigating the famous 18-minute gap in the White House office tapes of President Richard Nixon related to the Watergate scandal [3].
During this period he directed and provided theoretical input and guidance to many projects, including the Haskins prototype for the reading machine for the blind.