December 5, 2018
We are pleased to share the news that Alan Willsky, the Edwin Sibley Webster Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and former director of LIDS (2009-2014), has been selected by the IEEE Board of Directors to receive the 2019 IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal, which is given for outstanding achievements in signal processing. The award comes with the following citation:
“For contributions to stochastic modeling, multi-resolution techniques, and control-signal processing synergies.”
This award adds to Alan’s long list of distinguished accomplishments, including IEEE Fellow, member of the NAE, the 2010 Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and the 2013 SPS Society Award Signal Processing Society Award of the IEEE Signal Processing Society.
Please join us in congratulating Alan for this major recognition of his contributions.
Alan S. Willsky, Edwin Sibley Webster Professor of Electrical Engineering (retired), has been named as the recipient of the IEEE’s 2019 Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal.
In announcing the award, the organization noted that it is presented for outstanding achievements in signal processing. Specifically, Willsky is being recognized for “contributions to stochastic modeling, multi-resolution techniques, and control-signal processing synergies,” according to the award citation. The medal will be presented at an IEEE conference in May 2019.
Willsky joined the MIT faculty in 1973. He was director of MIT's Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) from 2009 to 2014. He also served as co-director (2008-2009), acting director (2007-2008), and assistant director (1974-1981).
He is the author of the research monograph “Digital Signal Processing and Control and Estimation Theory” and co-author, with EECS faculty colleague Alan V. Oppenheim, of the widely used undergraduate textbook “Signals and Systems.” He was a co-founder and Alphatech, Inc. (now BAE Systems), and served as the company’s chief scientific consultant.
Willsky is an IEEE Fellow and an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has held visiting positions in England and France and various leadership positions in the IEEE Control Systems Society, which named him a Distinguished Member in 1988. Other honors include the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) Award, the SPS Technical Achievement Award, the IEEE Donald G. Fink Award Paper Prize Award, the IEEE Browder J. Thompson Memorial Prize Award, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Alfred Noble Prize, and the American Automatic Control Council Donald P. Eckman Award.
The Kilby medal honors Jack S. Kilby (1923-2005), an American electrical engineer and inventor who was a co-recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his role in developing the integrated circuit.