John Robert Woodyard (1904–1981) was an American physicist and electrical engineer who made important contributions to the technology of microwave electronics.
He then pursued an academic career, eventually arriving at Stanford University to work with Russel and Sigurd F. Varian, W. W. Hansen and Edward Ginzton.
[2] He was awarded his PhD in 1940 and moved, with the rest of Hansen's team, to Sperry Gyroscope Company to work on radar during World War II.
[1] Woodyard filed many patents for Sperry, the most significant of which was for the process of "doping" to improve the performance of semiconductors.
[3] The demands of war work denied Woodyard the opportunity to pursue this line of research but, post-war, the technique became crucially important in the semiconductor industry and proved the grounds of extensive litigation by Sperry Rand.