Samuel L. McCall was born in Panama City, Florida, USA, in 1940. He received his Bachelor’s degree in 1962 from Florida State University. He, along with his teacher Erwin Hahn at the University of California, Berkeley, discovered self-induced transparency. For most of his career, he worked at Bell Laboratories, where he worked on a variety of projects. He was a Fellow of the Society and recipient of the 1990 Max Born Award.

McCall passed away in 1995.