Richard G. Baraniuk is the

C. Sidney Burrus Charles Sidney Burrus (October 9, 1934 in Abilene, Texas - April 3, 2021) was an American electrical engineer and the Maxfield and Oshman Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is widely ...

Professor of

Electrical and Computer Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

and the Founder and Director of the open education initiative

OpenStax OpenStax (formerly OpenStax College) is a nonprofit educational technology initiative based at Rice University. Since 2012, OpenStax has created peer-reviewed, openly-licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low c ...

(formerly called Connexions).

Academic biography

Dr. Baraniuk received a B.Sc. from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

in 1988. He earned a Ph.D. in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

in 1992 under the supervision of Douglas L. Jones.. After spending 1992-1993 at

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

in Lyon, France working with

Patrick Flandrin Patrick Flandrin (born 2 June 1955) is a French physicist, research director at CNRS researcher at École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, and member of the French Academy of Sciences. Biography After receiving the engineer degree from ICPI Lyon ( ...

, he joined Rice University.

Research

Baraniuk has been active in the development of

digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are ...

image processing An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...

, and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

systems, with numerous contributions to the theory of

wavelets A wavelet is a wave-like oscillation with an amplitude that begins at zero, increases or decreases, and then returns to zero one or more times. Wavelets are termed a "brief oscillation". A taxonomy of wavelets has been established, based on the num ...

compressive sensing Compressed sensing (also known as compressive sensing, compressive sampling, or sparse sampling) is a signal processing technique for efficiently acquiring and reconstructing a Signal (electronics), signal, by finding solutions to Underdetermined ...

, and

deep learning Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised. De ...

. The Rice "single-pixel camera" that he developed with Kevin Kelly was the first compressive imaging device and was selected by

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

as a TR10 Top 10 Emerging Technology in 2007. Six of Baraniuk's currently 45 granted US and foreign patents on compressive sensing were licensed by

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

in 2016 to accelerate

magnetic resonance imaging Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio wave ...

(MRI) scans. He has served as Project Director for the

ARO ARO (short for Auto Romania) was a Romanian off-road vehicle manufacturer located in Câmpulung. The first ARO vehicles were produced in 1957, and the last in 2003. For a short while, Daihatsu-powered AROs were sold in Spain and produced in Portu ...

MURI on "Opportunistic Sensing" from 2013-2018, the ONR MURI on "Foundations of Deep Learning" from 2020-2025, the DOE "INCITE" project, and several

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

projects, including "Analog to Information" and "Analog to Information Receiver".

Open education, Connexions, and OpenStax

Baraniuk is one of the founders of the

Open Education Open education is an educational movement founded on openness, with connections to other educational movements such as critical pedagogy, and with an educational stance which favours widening participation and inclusiveness in society. Open educa ...

movement. In 1999, Baraniuk launched " Connexions" (which was later re-named "

OpenStax CNX OpenStax CNX, formerly called Connexions, is a global repository of educational content provided by volunteers. The open source platform is provided and maintained by OpenStax, which is based at Rice University. The collection is available free ...

"), one of the first initiatives to offer free,

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

textbooks via the web.

continues to be one of the largest and most used open education platforms worldwide. Baraniuk's own OpenStax CNX textbook, "Signals and Systems," has generated 9 million page views including a very popular translation into Spanish.Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

, 2008.

provides the digital publishing platform for

(formerly called "

OpenStax College OpenStax (formerly OpenStax College) is a nonprofit educational technology initiative based at Rice University. Since 2012, OpenStax has created peer-reviewed, openly-licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low c ...

"), a free and open library of college textbooks that as of May 2021 has saved 20 million US college students $1.7 billion. Baraniuk has been an active advocate and popularizer of open education – speaking at the

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

2006 conference – and was also one of the framers of the

Cape Town Open Education Declaration The Cape Town Open Education Declaration is a major international statement on open access, open education and open educational resources. It emerged from a conference on open education hosted in Cape Town on 14 and 15 September 2007 by the Shuttlew ...

.Bringing open resources to textbooks and teaching

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

, 2008.

Awards and honors

Baraniuk has received numerous awards, including a

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

postdoctoral fellowship from NSERC in 1992, the National Young Investigator award 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 I ...

in 1994, a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research in 1995, the Rosenbaum Fellowship from the

Isaac Newton Institute The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is an international research institute for mathematics and its many applications at the University of Cambridge. It is named after one of the university's most illustrious figures, the mathema ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1998, the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

ECE Young Alumni Achievement Award in 2000, and the Wavelet Pioneer Award from

SPIE SPIE (formerly the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, later the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers) is an international not-for-profit professional society for optics and photonics technology, founded in 1955. It ...

in 2008. He also received the 2012 Compressive Sampling Pioneer award from

for his work on

and the 2014 Technical Achievement Award from

IEEE 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 ...

br>Signal Processing Society
He was selected as a DO

(formerly National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow) in 2017.

(then called "Connexions") received the Tech Museum Laureate Award from the Tech Museum of Innovation in 2006, and Baraniuk was selected as one of Edutopia Magazine's Daring Dozen educators in 2007.Richard G. Baraniuk: Offering Free Textbooks on the Lego Plan
2007. In 2008, Baraniuk received the Internet Pioneer Award from

Berkman Center for Internet & Society The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, ...

,Educators, Activists, Entrepreneurs, and Lawyers Win Berkman Awards for Internet Innovation
2008. and in 2010 he received the

IEEE Signal Processing Society The IEEE Signal Processing Society (IEEE SPS) is one of the nearly 40 technical societies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the first one created. Its mission is to "advance and disseminate state-of-the-art scien ...

Education Award. In 2011 he received the WISE Education Award from the

Qatar Foundation Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development ( ar, مؤسسة قطر) is a state-led non-profit organization in Qatar, founded in 1995 by then-emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his second wife Moza bint Nasser. Qatar Founda ...

. In 2015 he was awarded the

James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal. In 2021, he was awarded the Harold W. McGraw Prize in Education. Baraniuk was elected a Fellow of the

in 2001, a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

in 2009, a Fellow of the

National Academy of Inventors The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging inventors in academia, following the model of the National Academies of the United States. It was founded at the University of South Florida in 2010. ...

in 2016, a Member 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, and ...

in 2017, and a Member of 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 ...

in 2022.

References

External links

Baraniuk's web page
at Rice. * ** TED Talk
The birth of the open-source learning revolution
(TED2006) {{DEFAULTSORT:Baraniuk, Richard G. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American electrical engineers Rice University faculty Grainger College of Engineering alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering alumni Qatar Foundation people