Jack Keil Wolf (March 14, 1935 – May 12, 2011) was an American researcher in information theory and

coding theory Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and data storage. Codes are studied ...

Biography

Wolf was born in 1935 in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Weequahic High School Weequahic High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades, located in the Weequahic section of Newark in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. The school is operated by the Newar ...

in 1952. He received his undergraduate degree from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1956 and his Ph.D. from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1960 for his thesis "On the Detection and Estimation Problem for Multiple Nonstationary Random Processes". He held faculty appointments at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

1963–1965, the

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United Sta ...

1965–1973 and the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

1973–1984, and worked at

RCA Laboratories The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

and

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

. In 1984, he joined the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

, where he applied communication and information theory to

magnetic storage Magnetic storage or magnetic recording is the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetisation in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is ac ...

. He also held a part-time appointment at Qualcomm since its formation in 1985. He was president of 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 ...

in 1974. He died on May 12, 2011.

Awards and honors

IEEE Fellow As of 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 5,082 members designated Fellow, each of whom is associated with one of the 41 societies under the IEEE. The Fellow grade of membership is the highest level of membershi ...

(1973) *

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...

(1979) * Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (1993) * IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award (1998) * Claude E. Shannon Award from the

(2001) * IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (2004) * Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

(2005) * Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2010) * Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science *

Marconi Prize The Marconi Prize is an annual award recognizing achievements and advancements made in field of communications (radio, mobile, wireless, telecommunications, data communications, networks, and Internet). The prize is awarded by the Marconi Society ...

from and Fellow of the Marconi Society (2011)

References

External links

* * *
Princeton alumni profiles
*
CMRR Faculty Page

Roberto Padovani, Paul H. Siegel, and Andrew J. Viterbi, "Jack Keil Wolf", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2014)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf, Jack Keil 1935 births 2011 deaths Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American information theorists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering New York University faculty People from Newark, New Jersey Princeton University alumni University of California, San Diego faculty University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Weequahic High School alumni Polytechnic Institute of New York University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science