The Marconi Society announced Thomas Kailath of Stanford University as the latest honoree for the 2017 Marconi Society Lifetime Achievement Award. He joins previously announced Marconi Prize recipient Arun Netravali at the Marconi Symposium and Awards Gala this October 3rd in Summit, New Jersey.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded to individuals having made a large impact in the field of communication throughout their lives, with previous awardees including Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, and William O. Baker, former president of Bell Labs. Kailath’s contributions to communications include identification and characterization of randomly varying communication channels, algorithms for recursive estimation, and capacity-achieving codes for feedback communications.
“Many of us have met individuals who have made deep contributions in specific technical fields, or had a major impact on industry, or had a major impact on their academic discipline or educated the leaders of the future,” said James Plummer, Dean of Stanford University when Kailath received the 2007 IEEE Medal of Honor. “Tom is essentially unique in that he has done all of these things at the very highest levels.”
Arun Netravali, ninth president of Bell Laboratories, is regarded as the “father of digital video work” having made advances that are still used in all mobile phones and most TV formats. This achievement led to his recognition by the Marconi Society as an honoree for the $100,000 Marconi Prize.
