IEEE Awards Booklet - 2014 - 8

2014 IEEE MEDALS

IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal

IEEE Founders Medal

Sponsored by the IEEE Foundation

Dariush Divsalar

Eric Schmidt

For fundamental contributions to the
theory and practice of channel codes that
transformed deep space and other forms
of wireless communications

For transforming global access to
information through his leadership and
technological contributions

For more than three decades, Dariush Divsalar's innovative contributions to information theory and communications technology have provided advancements leading to more reliable and
efficient near-capacity transmission and reception of data for
wireless networks and deep-space communications. Dr. Divsalar's
channel coding innovations have led to state-of-the art technology and represent the most advanced high-performance coding schemes standardized for deep-space communications today.
Channel codes are used to protect data transmission and storage
in the presence of noise or errors. Perhaps best known for his
work on understanding turbo codes, which were the first practical
codes to closely approach channel capacity, Dr. Divsalar optimized
and standardized turbo codes for deep-space applications. He also
co-invented a new class of protograph-based low-density paritycheck (LDPC) codes for efficient information transfer over noisy
channels. Known as Accumulate Repeat Accumulate codes, the
technique is based on accumulators, puncturing, and a precoder to
further improve performance.These new codes are themselves an
enhanced version of Repeat Accumulate codes previously co-invented by Dr. Divsalar.These new protograph-based LDPC codes
have become Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems
(CCSDS) international standards and are being used in NASA
missions. Dr. Divsalar has also contributed significantly to bandwidth-efficient coded modulation, with work that paved the way
to trellis coded modulation design for wireless fading channels
that became the basis of the modern approach of bit-interleaved
coded modulation. This is an integral component of today's WiFi
and 4G wireless systems. He also developed the parallel partial
interference cancellation scheme for multiuser systems, analyzed
it, and showed its superiority in improving code division multiple
access (CDMA), which was an important building block of multiple access communications systems. Dr. Divsalar's latest discoveries are impacting the use of wireless, deep-space, and free-space
optical communications for high-speed data links.
An IEEE Life Fellow and recipient of the NASA Exceptional
Engineering Achievement Medal (1996), Dr. Divsalar is currently
a senior research scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif.

Eric Schmidt's technical and business ingenuity has helped guide
Google to its status of the world's premier search engine and
one of the most successful information technology companies.
With a visionary perspective of the Internet's potential since its
early days, Dr. Schmidt's leadership at Google has provided technology that has revolutionized how the world seeks information
and how people connect with each other. As chief executive officer from 2001-2011, Dr. Schmidt helped guide Google from a
start-up company to provider of the Internet's fastest and largest
search engine used by hundreds of millions of people. He has
been a driver of innovation, seeking methods to improve search
performance and establishing features such as Google Maps and
Gmail. Dr. Schmidt has helped grow the company that began
by offering Web search in a single language into one that now
offers dozens of products and services in many languages, including various forms of advertising and Web applications for diverse tasks.Today, Dr. Schmidt's responsibilities at Google include
building partnerships and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership, and advising
senior leadership on business and policy issues. With a career
spanning over 30 years of technology development, management,
and marketing contributions, Dr. Schmidt also coauthored the
lexical analyzer for UNIX while at the University of California, Berkeley. This program changed how software engineers approached the problem of creating compilers. As chief technology officer and corporate executive officer at Sun Microsystems
from 1983-1997, Dr. Schmidt led the development of the Java
platform-independent programming software that has become a
key enabler of today's Web-connected services.
An IEEE Member and member of the U.S. National Academy
of Engineering, the President's Council of Advisors on Science
and Technology (U.S.), and the Prime Minister's Advisory Council (U.K.), Dr. Schmidt is currently executive chairman at Google,
Inc., Mountain View, Calif.

Scope: For exceptional contributions to the advancement of communications sciences and engineering

Scope: For outstanding contributions in the leadership, planning,
and administration of affairs of great value to the electrical and
electronics engineering profession

8 | 2014 IEEE AWARDS BOOKLET

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