The IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal is an award honoring ''"exceptional contributions to communications and networking sciences and engineering"'' in the field of

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than tha ...

. The medal is one of the highest honors awarded by the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 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 operat ...

(IEEE) for achievements in telecommunication sciences and engineering. It was instituted in 1976 by the directors of IEEE, commemorating the centennial of the invention of the telephone by

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and T ...

. The award is presented either to an individual, or to a team of two or three persons. The institute's reasoning for the award was described thus: Recipients of the award receive a gold medal, bronze replica, certificate, and an

honorarium An honorarium is an '' ex gratia'' payment, i.e., a payment made, without the giver recognizing themselves as having any liability or legal obligation, to a person for his or her services in a volunteer capacity or for services for which fees ar ...

Recipients

As listed by the IEEE: *1976

Amos E. Joel, Jr. Amos Edward Joel Jr. (March 12, 1918 – October 25, 2008) was an American electrical engineer, known for several contributions and over seventy patents related to telecommunications switching systems. Biography Joel was born in Philadelphia, ...

, William Keister, and Raymond W. Ketchledge *1977 Eberhardt Rechtin *1978 M. Robert Aaron,

John S. Mayo John Sullivan Mayo (born February 26, 1930) is an American engineer, AT&T executive and seventh president of Bell Labs, known for contributions to the computer and telecommunications industry. In 1979, Mayo was elected a member of the National ...

, and Eric E. Sumner *1979

A. Christian Jacobaeus A is the first letter of the Latin and English alphabet. A may also refer to: Science and technology Quantities and units * ''a'', a measure for the attraction between particles in the Van der Waals equation * ''A'' value, a measure o ...

*1980

Richard R. Hough Richard Ralston Hough (; 1917 – July 9, 1992) was a Bell Labs engineer and AT&T executive. Biography Hough was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and attended Trenton High School. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1939 and a gradua ...

*1981 David Slepian *1982

Harold A. Rosen Harold A. Rosen (March 20, 1926 – January 30, 2017) was an American electrical engineer, known as "the father of the geostationary satellite", and "father of the communications satellite". He formed and led the team that designed and built the fi ...

*1983

Stephen O. Rice Stephen Oswald Rice (November 29, 1907 – November 18, 1986) was a pioneer in the related fields of information theory, communications theory, and telecommunications. Biography Rice was born in Shedds, Oregon (later renamed Shedd). He received ...

*1984

Andrew J. Viterbi Andrew James Viterbi (born Andrea Giacomo Viterbi, March 9, 1935) is an American electrical engineer and businessman who co-founded Qualcomm, Qualcomm Inc. and invented the Viterbi algorithm. He is the Presidential Chair Professor of Electrical ...

*1985 Charles K. Kao *1986 Bernard Widrow *1987

Joel S. Engel Joel Stanley Engel (born February 4, 1936) is an American electrical engineer who made fundamental contributions to the development of cellular networks. Born in New York City, he obtained a B.Sc. in engineering at City College of New York (1957) ...

, Richard H. Frenkiel, and William C. Jakes, Jr. *1988

Robert M. Metcalfe Robert Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946) is an engineer and entrepreneur from the United States who helped pioneer the Internet starting in 1970. He co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's law, which describes the e ...

*1989

Gerald R. Ash Gerald R. Ash (born August 1, 1942) is an American retired electrical engineer who worked at Bell Labs. His research has focused on routing problems; he is known for the development of Dynamic Non-Hierarchical Routing (DNHR). Biography Ash recei ...

and Billy B. Oliver *1990 Paul Baran *1991 C. Chapin Cutler,

John O. Limb John O. Limb is an Australian engineer, known for fundamental contributions to the development of digital video communications and holder of a series of patents related to computer communications. Early life and education Born in Western Austral ...

, and

Arun N. Netravali Arun N. Netravali (born 26 May 1945 in Mumbai, India) is an Indian-American computer engineer credited with contributions in digital technology including HDTV. He conducted research in digital compression, signal processing and other fields. N ...

*1992

James L. Massey James Lee Massey (February 11, 1934 – June 16, 2013) was an American information theorist and cryptographer, Professor Emeritus of Digital Technology at ETH Zurich. His notable work includes the application of the Berlekamp–Massey algorithm t ...

*1993 Donald C. Cox *1994

Hiroshi Inose was a Japanese electrical engineer, known as the inventor of the Time-Slot Interchange system (TSI), which is basic to modern digital telephone switches. Inose was highly involved within his career. He held positions such as director general, ...

*1995

Irwin M. Jacobs Irwin Mark Jacobs (born October 18, 1933) is an American electrical engineer and businessman. He is a co-founder and former chairman of Qualcomm, and chair of the board of trustees of the Salk Institute. As of 2019, Jacobs has an estimated net ...

*1996 Tadahiro Sekimoto *1997

Vinton G. Cerf Vinton may refer to: Places in the United States *Vinton, California *Fort Vinton, Florida *Vinton, Iowa * Vinton, Kansas *Vinton, Louisiana * Vinton, Missouri * Vinton, Nebraska, a ghost town in Valley County, Nebraska * Vinton Township, Nebraska ...

and

Robert E. Kahn Robert Elliot Kahn (born December 23, 1938) is an American electrical engineer who, along with Vint Cerf, first proposed the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), the fundamental communication protocols at the hear ...

*1998 Richard E. Blahut *1999

David G. Messerschmitt David G. Messerschmitt (born May 21, 1945) is an engineer and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. He retired fro ...

*2000

Vladimir A. Kotelnikov Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kotelnikov (russian: Владимир Александрович Котельников; 6 September 1908 in Kazan – 11 February 2005 in Moscow) was an information theory and radar astronomy pioneer from the Soviet Union. ...

* *2002 Tsuneo Nakahara *2003 Joachim Hagenauer * *2005

Jim K. Omura Jimmy K. Omura (born September 8, 1940 in San Jose, California) is an electrical engineer and information theorist. Omura received his B.S. and M.S. from MIT, and his Ph.D. from Stanford University, all in electrical engineering. He was a pro ...

*2006 John Wozencraft *2007 Norman Abramson *2008 Gerard J. Foschini *2009 Robert McEliece *2010 John Cioffi *2011

Arogyaswami Paulraj Arogyaswami J. Paulraj (born 14 April 1944) is an Indian-American electrical engineer, academic. He is a Professor Emeritus in the Dept. of Elect. Engg. at Stanford University. Early life Paulraj was born in Pollachi near Coimbatore, Bri ...

*2012

Leonard Kleinrock Leonard Kleinrock (born June 13, 1934) is an American computer scientist and a long-tenured professor at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. In the early 1960s, Kleinrock pioneered the application of queueing theory ...

*2013 Andrew Chraplyvy,

Robert Tkach The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

*2014

Dariush Divsalar Dariush ( fa, داریوش; also spelled ''Darioush'', ''Daryoush'' or ''Daryoosh'') is a common Persian male given name in Iran. Dariush is composed of ''dāraya-'' old+ ''vash-'' ood meaning "holding firm the good". It was the throne name of D ...

*2015

Frank Kelly Francis Kelly (28 December 1938 – 28 February 2016) was an Irish actor, singer and writer, whose career covered television, radio, theatre, music, screenwriting and film. He is best remembered for playing Father Jack Hackett in the Channel 4 ...

*2016

Roberto Padovani The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, ho ...

*2017 H. Vincent Poor *2018

Nambirajan Seshadri Nambirajan Seshadri is a professor of practice at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Jacobs School of Engineering, University of California, San Diego. Education Seshadri completed his Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degr ...

*2019

Teresa H. Meng Teresa Huai-Ying Meng (; born 1961) is a Taiwanese-American academician and entrepreneur. She is the Reid Weaver Dennis Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emerita, at Stanford University, and founder of Atheros Communications, a wireless semico ...

*2020

Rajiv Laroia Rājīv (Devanagari: राजीव, Bengali script: রাজীব) is a popular Indian, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Nepalese male name, also spelt Rajeev, Rajive, Rajib, Rajeeb, Rajiva and Rajiba. It is said that the lotus flower (''Nelumbo nuc ...

*2021 Nick McKeown *2022 Panganamala R. Kumar

References

{{Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell Medal Alexander Graham Bell Telecommunications engineering

Recipients

See also

References