Robert M. Gray (born November 1, 1943) is an American

information theorist Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

, and the Alcatel-Lucent Professor of Electrical Engineering at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

. He is best known for his contributions to quantization and compression, particularly the development of

vector quantization Vector quantization (VQ) is a classical quantization technique from signal processing that allows the modeling of probability density functions by the distribution of prototype vectors. It was originally used for data compression. It works by di ...

Awards

Gray received the 2008 Claude E. Shannon Award from the

IEEE Information Theory Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, for his fundamental contributions to information theory, particularly in the area of quantization theory. He was also the recipient of the 2008

IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal The IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal is presented "for outstanding achievements in signal processing" theory, technology or commerce. The recipients of this award will receive a gold medal, together with a replica in bronze, a certific ...

, the 1998 Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation from the

, the 1993 IEEE Signal Processing Society Award, and the 1984

IEEE Centennial Medal The IEEE Centennial Medal was a medal minted and awarded in 1984 ''to persons deserving of special recognition for extraordinary achievement'' to celebrate the Centennial of the founding of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ...

. Gray received the 2002 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

. In 2020 he received both
The Okawa Prize
for his seminal research in information coding theory and data compression, and enormous contributions to the promotion of diversity in engineering education, an
IEEE Aaron D. Wyner Distinguished Service Award
for his outstanding leadership in, and providing long standing, exceptional service, to the Information Theory community. Gray was elected as a member into the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

in 2007 for contributions to information theory and data compression. He received the IEEE Third Millennium Medal in 2000.

Early life

Born in 1943 in San Diego, Gray grew up in Coronado, California. He was the third child in a family of five children. Gray followed his two older brothers to the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, obtaining his M.S. in 1966. Gray earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

in 1969; his Ph.D. adviser was Robert A. Scholtz. He began his career at the US

Naval Ordnance Laboratory The Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL) was a facility in the White Oak area of Montgomery County, Maryland. It is now used as the headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Origins The U.S. Navy Mine Unit, later the Mine Laboratory at ...

Books

Gray has written or co-authored a number of technical texts, including: *''Toeplitz and Circulant Matrices'' (1971, revised 2006) *''Probability, Random Processes and Ergodic Properties'' (1988, revised 2007) *''Introduction to Statistical Signal Processing'' (1986, revised 2007) *''Entropy and Information Theory'' (1991, revised 2007) *''Source Coding Theory'' (1990) *''Vector Quantization and Signal Compression'' (1992) Gray is also an amateur historian and has collected together some historical letters from diplomats into books: *''Amy Heard: Letters from the Gilded Age'' (2005) *''Max&Max'' (2005)

Notable professional service

Gray is the Founding Editor of ''Foundations and Trends in Signal Processing''. He has also been Editor-in-Chief of both that publication and the ''IEEE Trans. on Information Theory'' (1981–1983), and served on the IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors (1974–1980, 1984–1987) and IEEE Signal Processing Society Board of Governors (1999–2001).

References

External links

Gray's webpageIEEE History Center Interview with Gray (1998)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Robert M. 1943 births Living people American information theorists MIT School of Engineering alumni USC Viterbi School of Engineering alumni Stanford University School of Engineering faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering IEEE Centennial Medal laureates