Imre Csiszár () is a Hungarian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

with contributions to

information theory Information theory is the mathematical study of the quantification (science), quantification, Data storage, storage, and telecommunications, communication of information. The field was established and formalized by Claude Shannon in the 1940s, ...

and

probability theory Probability theory or probability calculus is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expre ...

. In 1996 he won the Claude E. Shannon Award, the highest annual award given in the field of information theory. He was born on 7 February 1938 in

Miskolc Miskolc ( , ; ; Czech language, Czech and ; ; ; ) is a city in northeastern Hungary, known for its heavy industry. With a population of 161,265 as of 1 January 2014, Miskolc is the List of cities and towns in Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. He became interested in mathematics in middle school. He was inspired by his father who was a forest engineer and was among the first to use mathematical techniques in his area. He studied mathematics at the

Eötvös Loránd University Eötvös Loránd University (, ELTE, also known as ''University of Budapest'') is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. Founded in 1635, ELTE is one of the largest and most prestigious public higher education institutions in ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, and received his Diploma in 1961. He got his PhD in 1967 and the scientific degree Doctor of Mathematical Science in 1977. Later, he was influenced by

Alfréd Rényi Alfréd Rényi (20 March 1921 – 1 February 1970) was a Hungarian mathematician known for his work in probability theory, though he also made contributions in combinatorics, graph theory, and number theory. Life Rényi was born in Budapest to A ...

, who was very active in the area of probability theory. In 1990 he was elected Corresponding Member of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences The Hungarian Academy of Sciences ( , MTA) is Hungary’s foremost and most prestigious learned society. Its headquarters are located along the banks of the Danube in Budapest, between Széchenyi rakpart and Akadémia utca. The Academy's primar ...

, and in 1995 he became Full Member. Professor Csiszar has been with the Mathematical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 1961. He has been Head of the Information Theory Group there since 1968, and presently he is Head of the Stochastics Department. He is also Professor of Mathematics at the L. Eotvos University, Budapest. He has held Visiting Professorships at various universities including

Bielefeld University Bielefeld University () is a public university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization and teaching than the e ...

, Germany (1981),

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...

(several times, last in 1992),

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

(1982),

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

(1985–86), etc. He has been Visiting Researcher at the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

in 1988, and at NTT, Japan, in 1994. He is married and has four children. He is a Fellow of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

, and is a member of several other learned societies, including the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability. He has received several academic awards, including the Book Excellence Award of the

for his 1981 Information Theory monograph, the 1988 Paper Award of the IEEE Information Theory Society, the 2015 IEEE Richard Hamming Medal and the Academy Award for Interdisciplinary Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1989.

Books

* With János Körner: Information Theory: Coding Theorems for Discrete Memoryless Systems, Academic Press 1981, 2nd edition Cambridge University Press 2011. * With Paul C. Shields: Information Theory and Statistics: A Tutorial, Now Publishers, Inc., 2004.

External links

*
Announcement of IEEE 2015 Hamming Medal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Csiszar, Imre Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 20th-century Hungarian mathematicians 1938 births Living people Information theorists Probability theorists Academic staff of Bielefeld University Fellows of the IEEE