Mississippi State announces new graduate scholarship

James Flanagan led a distinguished career in communications engineering.
James Flanagan led a distinguished career in communications engineering. | Contributed photo

The newly created Dr. James L. Flanagan Endowed Graduate Scholarship at Mississippi State University will honor a prestigious alumnus and former professor who was internationally recognized as a pioneer and author in digital speech processing.

The scholarship, established by his wife, will be awarded to full-time graduate students pursuing a master’s or doctoral degree in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics field.

Flanagan graduated from MSU in 1948 with a degree in electrical engineering. He then obtained master’s and doctoral degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1950 and 1955, respectively.

Flanagan led a distinguished career in communications engineering. At AT&T, he developed the Audix One voicemail system and was also responsible for close to 50 patents. Later in his career, Flanagan went into academia, becoming the director of the Center for Advanced Information Processing at Rutgers University and later a distinguished research professor at MSU.

The Flanagan family boasts three generations of Bulldog students.