IEEE Awards Booklet - 2014 - 10

2014 IEEE MEDALS

IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education
Medal

IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing
Medal

Sponsored by MathWorks; Pearson Education,
Inc.; and the IEEE Life Members Fund

Sponsored by Texas Instruments, Inc.

John G. Proakis

Thomas Pinkney Barnwell, III

For contributions to electrical engineering
education through influential textbooks
and inspiring leadership in integrating
research and education

For leadership in and contributions to
speech processing, filter banks and wavelets, DSP hardware and architectures,
and technology-enhanced education

Known as a digital communications expert, inspiring educator,
and prolific writer, John G. Proakis has helped shape electrical
engineering and digital communications programs and composed
textbooks that have influenced graduate students worldwide. Dr.
Proakis developed an outstanding reputation of providing inspired
teaching and supervision of students with an academic career
that began in 1969 with the Electrical Engineering Department at Northeastern University. As the chair of Northeastern's
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Proakis
helped transform the department from a teaching environment to
a dynamic research-active department. Dr. Proakis also served as
associate dean and director of Northeastern's Graduate School of
Engineering. Of his 10 textbooks on digital communication and
signal processing, Digital Communications (McGraw Hill) is perhaps the best known. Considered the most influential resource on
the topic and now in its fifth edition, the textbook has educated
generations of students and engineers about the fundamentals associated with the digital information age. His other influential
textbooks include Introduction to Digital Signal Processing (Prentice
Hall), Communication Systems Engineering (Prentice Hall), and Fundamentals of Communication Systems (Prentice Hall). Dr. Proakis has
also expanded engineering education beyond theory to laboratory experiments and simulation techniques using computers and
software. His textbooks in this area include Digital Signal Processing
Using MATLAB (CL-Engineering) and Contemporary Communication Systems Using MATLAB and Simulink (Cengage Learning).
Through these approachable books, Dr. Proakis has helped expose
students early on to the MATLAB development and simulation
tool that they will likely need to use throughout their professional
careers. Dr. Proakis also served as editor of the five-volume Wiley
Encyclopedia of Telecommunications.
An IEEE Life Fellow and recipient of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Education Award (2004), Dr. Proakis is a Professor
Emeritus with Northeastern University, and an Adjunct Professor
at the University of California in San Diego.

Thomas Pinkney Barnwell, III is considered one of the historically most important contributors to the field of signal processing
over the last 50 years for the breadth of his digital signal processing (DSP) innovations that have advanced the very foundations
of the field. Credited with some of the most definitive work in
speech processing, Dr. Barnwell developed what is known as the
"Barnwell Windowing" technique.This made possible the G.728
international standard for 16 kbit/second speech coding, which
is used for Internet telephony. He also introduced the mixedexcitation linear prediction (MELP) speech coding standard,
which is considered the most influential speech coder of the past
20 years. It became a standard for government and military secure communications and has been incorporated in commercial
products such as digital answering machines and speech synthesis
chips. His pioneering work on filter banks and wavelets has been
integral to image compression, digital audio, and wireless communication applications. Dr. Barnwell founded the DSP research
group (now known as the Center for Signal and Information
Processing) at the Georgia Institute of Technology and helped
grow it into a world-class research center. As cofounder of Atlanta Signal Processors, Inc. (ASPI, now a division of Polycom,
Inc.), Dr. Barnwell was instrumental in providing important DSP
hardware to industry such as the first DSP chip for a PC, the
first DSP speech coder on a DSP microprocssor, and other highspeed DSP microprocessors. A champion of E-learning initiatives,
Dr. Barnwell's contributions to technology-enhanced education
include one of the first computer-based textbooks for teaching
with hands-on engagement.
An IEEE Life Fellow and recipient of two IEEE Signal Processing Society Paper Awards and an IEEE Signal Processing
Society Technical Achievement Award, Dr. Barnwell is a Professor Emeritus with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.

Scope: For a career of outstanding contributions to education in
the fields of interest of IEEE

Scope: For outstanding achievements in signal processing

10 | 2014 IEEE AWARDS BOOKLET

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2014