John

This presentation tells two interwoven stories --- an examination of the technical problem of correcting for the ill-effects of multipath propagation in high-rate communications systems, and the travails, and embarrassing mistakes, of a young engineer charged with finding a practical solution to the problem.  Even though the technical work reported in this talk is more than thirty years old, the algorithms developed then are still in active use in the very most modern radio and optical fiber transmission systems.

Biography:

John Treichler received his undergraduate degrees from Rice University in 1970 and his PhD EE from Stanford in 1977. He served as a line officer aboard destroyers in the US Navy from 1970 to 1974. Since 1977 he worked for ARGO Systems, taught at Stanford and Cornell, and then helped found Applied Signal Technology, Inc. in 1984 as its Chief Technical Officer. He still works at the company, now a part of Raytheon, leading the development of advanced signal processing equipment used by the United States government and its allies for foreign intelligence collection. John joined the IEEE at Rice in 1970, is now a Life Fellow, and served in many roles in the IEEE Signal Processing Society in the meantime. This past year he received the Signal Processing Society’s highest award, the Norbert Weiner Society Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is currently the president of the IEEE Foundation, the IEEE’s philanthropic partner in investment in the IEEE’s mission.

Address:California, United States