IEEE Awards Booklet - 2016 - 9

2016 ieee medals

IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal

IEEE Medal for Innovations
in Healthcare Technology

Sponsored by Qualcomm, Inc.

Sponsored by the IEEE Engineering in
Medicine and Biology Society

abbas el gamal

Charles a. Mistretta

For contributions to network multi-user
information theory and for wide-ranging impact on programmable circuit
architectures

For the development of imaging
instrumentation and techniques that
have transformed the diagnosis and
treatment of vascular disease

Abbas El Gamal's lasting contributions to information theory,
wireless networks, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and
digital imaging have immensely impacted a wide variety of information technology applications critical in today's society. His
early work formed the basis for several new areas in multi-user
information theory, paving the way to capacity results integral to
today's communications networks. He determined the capacity of
the product of Gaussian broadcast channels and of deterministic
interference channels leading to recent advances in multi-antenna
and interference-limited wireless networks.Together with Thomas Cover, he established the first upper and lower bounds on the
capacity of the three-node relay network. This work introduced
the cut-set upper bound for networks, which is widely used in
information theory today, as well as the compress-forward and
decode-forward schemes, which continue to be the dominant relaying techniques. His recent work has involved the creation of
coding schemes for sending multiple sources over noisy networks,
and significant contributions to wireless networks through characterizing their optimal delay-throughput tradeoff and devising
schemes for energy-efficient packet transmission scheduling. His
book Network Information Theory (Cambridge Press, 2011) with
Young-Han Kim provides the first unified and comprehensive
coverage of the field. El Gamal's contributions to hardware design
include the development of integrated circuit fabrics and tools
that significantly reduce design time and cost of systems used in
computing, communication, and signal-processing applications.
In 1986, he cofounded Actel, where he coinvented the routing
architecture used in all commercial FPGAs today. He subsequently pioneered the use of FPGAs in teaching digital system design,
which has become standard in all electrical engineering programs.
An IEEE Fellow and member of the U.S. National Academy
of Engineering, El Gamal is a professor and chair in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, Stanford,
CA, USA.

The pioneering accomplishments and vision of Charles A. Mistretta in developing digital subtraction angiography (DSA), timeresolved magnet resonance angiography (MRA), and accelerated
imaging algorithms have transformed diagnostic radiology. During the 1970s, screen film X-rays were the standard for radiography and angiography. However, film angiograms were limited
due to interference from overlying anatomy. Mistretta recognized
the importance that electronic subtraction in imaging could play
in providing vascular images that were free of obscuring anatomy.
Incorporating a hand-made, custom-designed digital image processor, Mistretta introduced his DSA technique. He went on to
refine and optimize DSA to provide virtually real-time visualization of vascular structures without obstructions, revolutionizing angiography with a safer and more effective technology that
is now found in practically every medical center. DSA is also
considered an enabling technology that made minimally invasive
vascular therapeutic procedures such as angioplasty and stenting
possible. During the 1990s, Mistretta applied DSA technology to
overcome the limitations of slow magnetic resonance data acquisition in contrast-enhanced MRA techniques. He developed the
time-resolved imaging of contrast kinetics (TRICKS) method for
three-dimensional visualization of previously difficult-to-image
vascular beds. TRICKS provides clinicians with dynamic vascular information and eliminates the timing uncertainty associated
with single-image contrast-enhanced MRA. This radiation-free
MRA method uses less toxic contrast material and is performed
intravenously rather than intra-arterially for enhanced safety and
effectiveness. Mistretta's recent efforts include work on image acceleration. His highly constrained reconstructions from projections (HYPR) method provides rapid accelerations of dynamic or
parametric imaging by using imaging data acquired over a short
time interval to weight an image acquired over a much longer
time interval.
A member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering,
Mistretta is a professor with the Department of Medical Physics, Radiology, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.

Scope: For exceptional contributions to information sciences, systems, and technology.

Scope: For outstanding contributions and/or innovations in engineering within the fields of medicine, biology, and healthcare
technology.

9 | 2016 IEEE AWARDS BooKLET

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2016