Lawrence "Larry" J. Giacoletto (1916-2004) was an electrical engineer at RCA primarily working on transistor research. Giacoletto was born in Clinton, Indiana in 1916. He earned a BS in electrical engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1938 and an MS in physics and mathematics from the State University of Iowa in 1939. Giacoletto began coursework toward a PhD in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Michigan, but before the degree was completed, he was drafted into the Army Signal Corps in 1941. Giacoletto eventually earned the degree in 1952.

Following four years in the Signal Corps, Giacoletto was hired by RCA as a Member of the Technical Staff. He began work at the David Sarnoff Research Center (DSRC) in Princeton, New Jersey in the Electron Tube Research Group, where he was part of the team that developed the first color television set. When the transistor was developed at a Bell Labs, Giacoletto and most of his team moved into transistor research. Giacoletto created the first automatic automobile ignition switch during a tour of DSRC facilities by GM executives.

Giacoletto left RCA in 1956 to work at the Ford Motor Company. From there, he became a professor of electrical engineering at Michigan State University, where he spent 25 years before retiring in 1987. Giacoletto died in Michigan in 2004.

Giacoletto authored or co-authored three books and more than Seventy articles, and he was issued twenty-two patents. He was a Fellow of the IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2011, the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology established an endowed faculty chair in electrical engineering in his honor.