Alexander Vardy (, ; 12 November 1963 - 11 March 2022) was a Russian-born and Israeli-educated

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

known for his expertise in

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 computer data storage, data sto ...

.. He held the Jack Keil Wolf Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

.. The Parvaresh–Vardy codes are named after him. Vardy was born in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

in 1963.. He graduated from the

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is a public university, public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 by Jews under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion is the oldest university in the coun ...

in 1985, and completed his Ph.D. in 1991 at

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

. During his graduate studies, he also worked on

electronic countermeasure An electronic countermeasure (ECM) is an electrical or electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, sonar, or other detection systems, like infrared (IR) or lasers. It may be used both offensively and defensively to deny targeting info ...

s for the

Israeli Air Force The Israeli Air Force (IAF; , commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial and space warfare branch of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It was founded on May 28, 1948, shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Indep ...

, attaining the rank of Seren (Captain). He became a researcher at the

IBM Almaden Research Center IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company. IBM Research is headquartered at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, near IBM headquarters ...

for two years, then became a faculty member of the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

before moving to

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing ...

in 1996. He served as editor-in-chief of the ''

IEEE Transactions on Information Theory ''IEEE Transactions on Information Theory'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the IEEE Information Theory Society. It covers information theory and the mathematics of communications. It was established in 1953 as ''IRE Tran ...

'' from 1998 to 2001. In 2004 a paper by Ralf Koetter and Vardy on decoding Reed–Solomon codes was listed by the

IEEE Information Theory Society 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 ...

as the best paper in information theory of the previous two years; the resulting decoding algorithm has become known as the Koetter–Vardy algorithm. Vardy was named a

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

in 1999. He became the Jack Wolf Professor in 2013. He was elected as an

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

in 2017. Vardy died on March 11, 2022, at the age of 58.

References

External links

Google scholar profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vardy, Alexander 1963 births 2022 deaths Coding theorists Technion – Israel Institute of Technology alumni Tel Aviv University alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty University of California, San Diego faculty Fellows of the IEEE 2017 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Israeli Air Force personnel Scientists from Moscow