December 17, 2003

UCSD Professor Wins IEEE Award For
Work On Data Transmission And Storage

By Doug Ramsey

Jack Wolf, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), has been selected by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to receive the 2004 Richard W. Hamming Medal. Wolf was cited “for fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of information transmission and storage." The award is sponsored by AT&T Labs.

Wolf is an expert in digital information storage and signal processing for digital recording. He was an early proponent of applying information and communications theory to the construction of ultra-high-density information storage.

Wolf is the Stephen O. Rice Professor of Magnetics in UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering, and leads the Signal Processing Group within the university’s Center for Magnetic Recording Research (CMRR). “Professor Wolf and his team of researchers are in the forefront of the design of signal processing systems for the storage of digital data, particularly high-density magnetic recording systems,” said Paul Yu, chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UCSD. “This award is richly deserved and recognizes Wolf’s longstanding contributions to a field that is at the intersection of two revolutions – communications, and information storage.”

The research results of Jack and his students have been incorporated in the design of several communication and storage systems. These include: the OMNITRACS satellite to truck communication system, the INTELSAT satellite communication system, the CDMA cellular telephone system, and the electronics used in current hard disk drives.

The Hamming Medal has been given annually since 1986 for exceptional contributions to information sciences, systems and technology. It is named in honor of Dr. Richard W. Hamming, who has had a central role in the development of computer and computing science, and whose many significant contributions in the area of information science include his error-correcting codes.

The Hamming Medal is Wolf’s third IEEE award in five years. He was the recipient of its Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communication Award in 1998, and the Information Theory Society's Shannon Award in 2001. Wolf is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. in 1960 from Princeton University, and later taught at New York University, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Wolf joined the UCSD faculty in 1984 and was the first chaired professor in CMRR.

Media Contact: Doug Ramsey (858) 822-5825