Thomas Wiegand (born 6 May 1970 in

Wismar Wismar (; ), officially the Hanseatic City of Wismar () is, with around 43,000 inhabitants, the sixth-largest city of the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the fourth-largest city of Mecklenburg after Rostock, Schwerin and ...

) is a German

electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

who substantially contributed to the creation of the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. He has been elected to the German National Academy of Engineering (Acatech) and the National Academy of Science (Leopoldina).
For H.264/AVC, Wiegand was one of the chairmen of the Joint Video Team (JVT) standardization committee that created the standard and was the chief editor of the standard itself. He was also a very active technical contributor to the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. Wiegand also holds a chairmanship position in the

ITU-T The International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) is one of the three Sectors (branches) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). It is responsible for coordinating Standardization, standards fo ...

VCEG The Video Coding Experts Group or Visual Coding Experts Group (VCEG, also known as Question 6) is a working group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with standards for compression coding of video, images, audio ...

ITU-T Study Group 16 The ITU-T Study Group 16 (SG16) is a statutory group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with multimedia coding, systems and applications, such as video coding standards. It is responsible for standardization of ...

and previously in

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

/ IEC

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...

standardization organizations. In July 2006, video coding work of the ITU-T was jointly led by Gary J. Sullivan and Wiegand for the preceding six years. It was voted as the most influential area of the standardization work of the CCITT and ITU-T in their 50-year history. Since 2018, Wiegand has served as chair of the ITU/ WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health (FG-AI4H). Since 2014, Thomson Reuters named Wiegand in their list of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” as one of the most cited researchers in his field.

Current work

Wiegand is Professor at

Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a public university, public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was the first ...

and executive director of the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin, Germany. He heads research teams working on: * Video processing and coding * Multimedia transmission * Machine learning * Mobile Communications (management) * Computer Vision (management) Since 2020 he is a principal scientist at the Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data (BIFOLD).

Early background

Thomas Wiegand was born in and spent his early life in

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. He decided to take an apprenticeship as an electrician instead of studying to avoid having to serve for three years in the

National People's Army The National People's Army (, ; NVA ) were the armed forces of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (DDR) from 1956 until 1990. The NVA was organized into four branches: the (Ground Forces), the (Navy), the (Air Force) and the (Bord ...

. After the "'' Wende''" he started to study electrical engineering at the

Hamburg University of Technology The Hamburg University of Technology (in German language, German ''Technische Universität Hamburg'', abbreviated TUHH (HH as acronym of Hamburg state) or TU Hamburg) is a research university in Germany. The university was founded in 1978 and in ...

, where he earned his

Diplom A ''Diplom'' (, from ) is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...

in 1995. In 2000, he earned his Ph.D. at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. As a student, he was a visiting researcher at Kobe University, Japan, the

University of California at Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joine ...

and

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 ...

, US, where he also returned as a visiting professor.

Standardization

* Since 2000: Associated Rapporteur of

(Video Coding Experts Group -

SG16 Q.6) * Since 2001: Associated Rapporteur / Co-chair of JVT * Since 2002: Editor of the H.264/ AVC video coding standard and its extensions (FRExt and SVC) * 2005-2009: Associated Chair of

Video (Moving Pictures Experts Group -

/ IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11) * Since 2018: Chair of the ITU/ WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health (FG-AI4H)

Awards

* 1998:

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 ...

VCIP Best Student Paper Award (together with E. Steinbach, P. Eisert and B. Girod) * 2004: Fraunhofer Award (together with D. Marpe and H. Schwarz) * 2004: ITG Award of the German Society for Information Technology (together with D. Marpe and H. Schwarz) * 2006: The video coding work of the ITU-T led by Gary Sullivan and Thomas Wiegand jointly since 2000 was voted as the most influential area of the standardization work of the CCITT and ITU-T in their 50-year history * 2008: Primetime Emmy Engineering Award (awarded to the JVT standards committee by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for development of the High Profile of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, for which Wiegand served as associated rapporteur/co-chair, editor, and technical contributor) * 2009: Paired

Technology & Engineering Emmy Award The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineer ...

s
one awarded to VCEG and one to MPEG
by the

National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), also known as the National Television Academy until 2007, is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of televisio ...

for development of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard) *2009: Group Technical Achievement Award of EURASIP (European Association for Signal Processing) for active contributions to video coding research and standardization activities *2009: Best Paper Award of ''

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 ...

Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology'' (together with H. Schwarz and D. Marpe) *2009: Innovation Award of Vodafone Foundation for Research in Mobile Communications *2010: Technology Award of Eduard Rhein Foundation (together with J.-R. Ohm) *2011: Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to video coding and its standardization *2011: Best Paper Award of EURASIP (European Association for Signal Processing) (together with K. Müller, A. Smolic, K. Dix, P. Merkle and P. Kauff) *2011: Karl Heinz Beckurts Award (together with H. Schwarz and D. Marpe) *2012: IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award - IEEE Technical Field Award *2013: Best Paper Award of ''

Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology'' (together with G. J. Sullivan, J.-R. Ohm, and W.-J. Han) *2013: Best Journal Paper Award of the IEEE Communications Society MMTC (together with P. Ndjiki-Nya, M. Koppel, D. Doshkov, H. Lakshman, P. Merkle and K. Müller) *2013:

International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

(IMTC) Leadership Award *2013: Research Award for Technical Communication of Alcatel Lucent Foundation *2014: Best Paper Award of EURASIP (European Association for Signal Processing) (together with P. Merkle, Y. Morvan, A. Smolic, D. Farin, K. Müller and P.H.N. de With) *2014: Richard Theile Medal of the German Television and Cinema Technology Society *2015: ITU150 AwardAward''
/ref> (the other ITU 150 awards went to

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

, Robert E. Kahn, Mark I. Krivocheev, Martin Cooper, and Ken Sakamura) *2016: Elected member of the German National Academy of Engineering (Acatech) *2017: Primetime Emmy Engineering Award (awarded to the JCT-VC standards committee of

and

by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for development of the H.265/MPEG-H HEVC standard, for which Wiegand served as associated rapporteur of

and technical contributor) *2018: Elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) *2019: Best Poster Presentation Paper Award, Picture Coding Symposium, Ningbo, China (PCS 2019) (together with W.-Q. Lim, H. Schwarz, D. Marpe) *2022: EURASIP Best Paper Award for the Signal Processing: Image Communication Journal (together with R. Reisenhofer, S. Bosse, G. Kutyniok) *2022: Fellow of the Information Technology Society in VDE (ITG) 2022, for his "outstanding achievements in the field of communications and information technology, noted by the entire professional community, in conjunction with iscommitment to our professional society." * 2024: IEEE SPS Best Paper Award (together with S. Bosse, D. Maniry, K.-R. Müller, and W. Samek)

Other positions held

* 1993–1994: Visiting Researcher, Kobe University,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

* 1995: Visiting Scholar,

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

* 1997–1998: Visiting Researcher,

, California, USA * 1997–1998: Consultant to 8x8 Inc.,

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...

, USA * 2006–2011: Member of technical advisory board, Vidyo, Inc.,

Hackensack, New Jersey Hackensack is the most populous municipality in and the county seat of Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.

, USA * 2006–2008: Member of technical advisory board, Stream Processors, Inc.,

Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real (California), El Camino Real and U.S. Route 101 in California, Highway 1 ...

, USA * 2007–2009: Consultant, Skyfire, Inc. (acquired by Opera Software ASA),

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

, USA * 2011–2012: Visiting professor,

, USA

External links

* *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiegand, Thomas 1970 births Living people People from Wismar People from Bezirk Rostock Engineers from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania University of Erlangen–Nuremberg alumni Academic staff of Technische Universität Berlin Fellows of the IEEE Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Primetime Emmy Engineering Award winners Hamburg University of Technology alumni