Baroness Ingrid Daubechies ( ; ; born 17 August 1954) is a Belgian-American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. She is best known for her work with

wavelet 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 n ...

s in

image compression Image compression is a type of data compression applied to digital images, to reduce their cost for computer data storage, storage or data transmission, transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properti ...

. Daubechies is recognized for her study of the mathematical methods that enhance image-compression technology. She is a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a 1992 MacArthur Fellow. She also served on the Mathematical Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize from 2011 to 2013. The name Daubechies is widely associated with the orthogonal Daubechies wavelet and the biorthogonal CDF wavelet. A wavelet from this family of wavelets is now used in the

JPEG 2000 JPEG 2000 (JP2) is an image compression standard and coding system. It was developed from 1997 to 2000 by a Joint Photographic Experts Group committee chaired by Touradj Ebrahimi (later the JPEG president), with the intention of superseding their ...

standard. Her research involves the use of automatic methods from both mathematics, technology, and biology to extract information from samples such as bones and teeth. She also developed sophisticated image processing techniques used to help establish the authenticity and age of some of the world's most famous works of art, including paintings by

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

and

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

. Daubechies is on the board of directors of Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE), a program that helps women entering graduate studies in the mathematical sciences. She was the first woman to be president of the

International Mathematical Union The International Mathematical Union (IMU) is an international organization devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Science Council (ISC) and supports the International ...

(2011–2014). She became a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

in 2015.

Early life and education

Daubechies was born in Houthalen, Belgium, as the daughter of Simonne Duran (a criminologist) and Marcel Daubechies (a civil mining engineer). She remembers that when she was a little girl and could not sleep, she did not count numbers, as one would expect from a child, but started to multiply numbers by two from memory. Thus, as a child, she already familiarized herself with the properties of

exponential growth Exponential growth occurs when a quantity grows as an exponential function of time. The quantity grows at a rate directly proportional to its present size. For example, when it is 3 times as big as it is now, it will be growing 3 times as fast ...

. Her parents found out that mathematical conceptions, such as

cone In geometry, a cone is a three-dimensional figure that tapers smoothly from a flat base (typically a circle) to a point not contained in the base, called the '' apex'' or '' vertex''. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines ...

and

tetrahedron In geometry, a tetrahedron (: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular Face (geometry), faces, six straight Edge (geometry), edges, and four vertex (geometry), vertices. The tet ...

, were familiar to her before she reached the age of six. She excelled at the primary school and was moved up a grade after only three months. After completing the

Lyceum The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Basic science and some introduction to ...

Hasselt Hasselt (, , ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg in the Flemish Region of Belgium. As of 1 August 2023, Hasselt had a total population of 80,846. The old ...

, she entered the

Vrije Universiteit Brussel The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Dutch language, Dutch, ; lit. Free University of Brussels; abbreviated VUB) is a Dutch- and English-speaking research university in Brussels, Belgium. It has four campuses: Brussels Humanities, Science and Engine ...

at age 17. Daubechies completed her undergraduate studies in physics at the

in 1975. During the next few years, she visited the CNRS Center for Theoretical Physics in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

several times, where she collaborated with

Alex Grossmann Alexander Grossmann (5 August 1930 – 12 February 2019) was a French-American physicist of Croatian origin. Early life Aleksandar Grossmann was born to a Jewish family in Zagreb, where he was attending a gymnasium when World War II in Yugoslav ...

; this work was the basis for her doctorate in

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

. She obtained her PhD in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

in 1980 at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Career

After completing her doctorate, Daubechies continued her research career at the

until 1987, rising through the ranks to positions roughly equivalent with research assistant-professor in 1981 and research associate-professor 1985, funded by a fellowship from the NFWO (Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek). Daubechies spent most of 1986 as a guest-researcher at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York. At Courant she made her best-known discovery: based on quadrature mirror filter-technology she constructed compactly supported continuous

s that would require only a finite amount of processing, in this way enabling wavelet theory to enter the realm 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 a ...

. In July 1987, Daubechies joined

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the company operates several lab ...

Murray Hill, New Jersey Murray Hill is an unincorporated community located within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County, in the northern portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is the longtime central location of Bell ...

. In 1988, she published the result of her research on orthonormal bases of compactly supported wavelets in

Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics ''Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal which is published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. It covers research originating from or solicited ...

. In 1991, Daubechies was appointed as a professor at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

, where she taught in their mathematics department. She remained there through 1994. Daubechies moved to

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1994, where she was active within the program in applied and computational mathematics. In 2004, she was named as the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor there. She was the first woman to become a full professor of mathematics at Princeton. In January 2011, Daubechies moved to

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

to serve as the James B. Duke Professor in the department of mathematics and electrical and computer engineering at Duke University. In 2016, she and Heekyoung Hahn founded Duke Summer Workshop in Mathematics (SWIM) for rising high school seniors who were female. In 2020 and 2021 Daubechies, along with fiber artist Dominique Ehrmann, led a team of mathematicians and artists who collectively built the touring art and math installation known as '' Mathemalchemy''.

Mathematical skills applied to fine art

Daubechies has used mathematical techniques on multiple art restoration projects. Her team worked on restoring the

Ghent Altarpiece The ''Ghent Altarpiece'', also called the ''Adoration of the Mystic Lamb'' (), is a very large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420s and completed by 1432, and it ...

, a massive fifteenth-century work of art consisting of 12 panels that are attributed to the brothers Hubert and

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( ; ; – 9 July 1441) was a Flemish people, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Nort ...

. Daubechies and several colleagues developed new mathematical techniques to both reverse the effects of aging upon the artworks and untangle and remove the effects of past ill-fated conservation efforts. Using highly precise photographs and X-rays of the panels as well as various filtering methods, the team of mathematicians found an automatic way to detect the cracks caused by aging. They also were able to decipher the apparent text of the polyptych, which was attributed to

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

. Daubechies and her collaborators also contributed to the restoration of the fourteenth-century Saint John Altarpiece by Francescuccio Ghissi in the North Carolina Museum of Art, applying some of the techniques they discovered working on the

restoration. With this project the mathematicians used machine-learning algorithms to separate features.

Awards and honors

Daubechies received the Louis Empain Prize for Physics in 1984. It is awarded once every five years to a Belgian scientist on the basis of work done before the age of 29. In 1992, she was awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

and in 1993, she was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) 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 other ...

. In 1994, she received the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

Steele Prize for Exposition for her book, ''Ten Lectures on Wavelets'', and was invited to give a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich. In 1997, she was awarded the AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter prize. In 1998, she was elected to the

United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

and won the Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation from 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 ...

. She became a foreign member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (, KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam. In addition to various advisory a ...

in 1999. In 2000, Daubechies became the first woman to receive the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics, presented every four years for excellence in published mathematical research. The award honored her "for fundamental discoveries on wavelets and wavelet expansions and for her role in making wavelets methods a practical basic tool of applied mathematics". She was awarded the Basic Research Award of the German Eduard Rhein Foundation as well as the NAS Award in Mathematics. In 2003, Daubechies was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

. In January 2005, Daubechies became the third woman since 1924 to give the Josiah Willard Gibbs Lecture sponsored by the American Mathematical Society. Her talk was on "The Interplay Between Analysis and Algorithm". Daubechies was the 2006 Emmy Noether Lecturer at the San Antonio Joint Mathematics Meetings. In September 2006, the Pioneer Prize from the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics was awarded jointly to Daubechies and Heinz Engl. In 2010, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). In 2011, Daubechies was the SIAM John von Neumann Lecturer, and was awarded the IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal, the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research from the

, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering from the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and a center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and wikt:statesman, statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin ...

. In 2012, King Albert II of Belgium granted Daubechies the title of Baroness. She also won the 2012 Nemmers Prize in Mathematics awarded by

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

, and the 2012 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category (jointly with

David Mumford David Bryant Mumford (born 11 June 1937) is an American mathematician known for his work in algebraic geometry and then for research into vision and pattern theory. He won the Fields Medal and was a MacArthur Fellow. In 2010 he was awarded th ...

). Daubechies gave the Gauss Lecture of the

German Mathematical Society The German Mathematical Society (, DMV) is the main professional society of German mathematicians and represents German mathematics within the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the International Mathematical Union (IMU). It was founded in ...

in 2015. The

Simons Foundation The Simons Foundation is an American private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and James Harris Simons, Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the United States with assets of over $5 ...

, a private foundation based in New York City that funds research in mathematics and the basic sciences, gave Daubechies the Math + X Investigator award, which provides money to professors at American and Canadian universities to encourage new partnerships between mathematicians and researchers in other fields of science. She was the one to suggest to Simons that the foundation should fund better mechanisms for interpreting existing data, rather than new research. Also in 2015, Daubechies was elected a member of the

for "contributions to the mathematics and applications of wavelets". In 2018, Daubechies won the William Benter Prize in

Applied Mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...

from

City University of Hong Kong The City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is a public research university in Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and formally established as the City University of Hong Kong in 1994 ...

(CityU). She is the first woman to be the recipient of the award. Prize officials cited the pioneering work of Daubechies in

theory and her "exceptional contributions to a wide spectrum of scientific and mathematical subjects" and noted that "her work in enabling the mobile smartphone revolution is truly symbolic of the era". Also in 2018, Daubechies was awarded the Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award ($440,000) for her work on wavelets. She is part of the 2019 class of fellows of the

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

. Daubechies was named the North American Laureate of 2019 L'Oréal-UNESCO International Award For Women in Science. Since 1998, the annual worldwide award recognizes five outstanding women in chemistry, physics, materials science, mathematics, and computer science. Also in 2019, she became a member of the

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (), in short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on 1 January 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the ''Academi ...

. Daubechies received the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research in 2020. In 2023, she was awarded the

Wolf Prize in Mathematics The Wolf Prize in Mathematics is awarded almost annually by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Medicine, Physics and Arts. ...

"for work in wavelet theory and applied harmonic analysis”. She was the first woman to receive this award. In 2024, Daubechies received an honorary Doctor of Sciences from

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and a honorary degree from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

. Daubechies has been awarded The Bakerian Medal and Lecture 2025 for her work on wavelets and image compression and her exceptional contributions to a wide spectrum of physical, technological, and mathematical applications. In January 2025, Daubechies was a recipient of the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...

Personal life

In 1985, Daubechies met mathematician Robert Calderbank when he was on a three-month exchange visit from Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey to the Brussels-based mathematics division of

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

Research. They married in 1987. They have two children, Michael Calderbank and Carolyn Calderbank.

Publications

*
Orthonormal bases of compactly supported wavelets
1988, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Journal: Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics, Volume41, Issue 7. * D. Aerts and I. Daubechies
A connection between propositional systems in Hilbert spaces and von Neumann algebras
''Helv. Phys. Acta'', 52, pp. 184–199, 1979. * D. Aerts and I. Daubechies
A characterization of subsystems in physics
''Lett. Math. Phys.'', 3 (1), pp. 11–17, 1979.
Iteratively reweighted least squares minimization for sparse recovery
2009, Periodicals, Inc. Journal: Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics, Volume 63, Issue1. * Cohen, I. Daubechies, and A. Ron
How smooth is the smoothest function in a given refinable space?
''Appl. Comp. Harm. Anal.'', 3 (1), pp. 87–89, 1996. * I. Daubechies, S. Jaffard, and J.L. Journe
A simple Wilson orthonormal basis with exponential decay
''SIAM J. Math. Anal.'', 22 (2), pp. 554–572, 1991.

Applications

Image compression Image compression is a type of data compression applied to digital images, to reduce their cost for computer data storage, storage or data transmission, transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properti ...

Digital cinema Digital cinema is the digital technology used within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be shipped to mo ...

Digital art restoration
* Biological morphology

References

Citations

Attribution

External links

* *I. Daubechies
A Different Way to Look at Subband Coding
NJIT Symposium on Multi-Resolution Signal Decomposition Techniques: Wavelets, Subbands and Transforms, April 1990.

in the Girls' Angle Bulletin, volume 1, number 6 and volume 2, numbers 1 through 4.

Agnes Scott College Agnes Scott College is a Private university, private Women's Colleges in the Southern United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. The college enrolls approximately 1,000 undergra ...

*
Ingrid Daubechies' homepage
at Duke University {{DEFAULTSORT:Daubechies, Ingrid 1954 births Living people 20th-century American physicists 20th-century Belgian scientists 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century Belgian mathematicians 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American physicists 21st-century Belgian scientists 21st-century American women scientists 21st-century American mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians 21st-century Belgian mathematicians American women physicists Belgian women physicists Belgian women mathematicians Expatriate academics in the United States Belgian barons Belgian mathematicians Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Vrije Universiteit Brussel alumni Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics MacArthur Fellows Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts Duke University faculty People from Houthalen-Helchteren Scientists at Bell Labs Simons Investigator L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureates Members of Academia Europaea Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Members of the American Philosophical Society Presidents of the International Mathematical Union Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) laureates 21st-century Belgian women scientists 20th-century Belgian women scientists Wolf Prize in Mathematics laureates