Richard G. Baraniuk is the C. Sidney Burrus Professor of

Electrical and Computer Engineering 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 ...

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

, the founder and Director of the open education initiative

OpenStax OpenStax (formerly OpenStax College) is a nonprofit educational technology initiative based at Rice University. Since 2012, OpenStax has created peer-reviewed, openly licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low ...

(formerly called Connexions), and the founder and Director of the learning science and education research infrastructur
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Academic biography

Dr. Baraniuk received a B.Sc. from the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1877, it is the first university of Western Canada. Both by total student enrolment and campus area, the University of ...

in 1987 and a M.Sc. from the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

in 1988. He earned a Ph.D. in

electrical engineering 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 ...

at 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 ...

in 1992 under the supervision of Douglas L. Jones.. After spending 1992-1993 at

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

in Lyon, France working with Patrick Flandrin, he joined Rice University.

Research

Baraniuk has been active in the development 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 ...

image processing An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be displayed through other media, including a pr ...

, and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

systems, with numerous contributions to the theory of

wavelets 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 ...

, compressive sensing, and

deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...

. The Rice "single-pixel camera" that he developed with Kevin Kelly was the first compressive imaging device and was selected by

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

as a TR10 Top 10 Emerging Technology in 2007. Six of Baraniuk's over 35 patents were licensed by

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

for applications in

magnetic resonance imaging Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and ...

(MRI) scans. He has served as Project Director for the

ARO Aro or ARO may refer to: People * Aro (surname) * Aro people, an Igbo subgroup in West Africa * Aro (murderer) (died 1957), last person executed in Papua New Guinea * Aro (Twilight), a character in the ''Twilight'' saga by Stephenie Meyer * Aro, a ...

MURI on "Opportunistic Sensing" from 2013-2018, the ONR MURI on "Foundations of Deep Learning" from 2020-2025, the DOE "INCITE" project, and several

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

projects, including "Analog to Information" and "Analog to Information Receiver".

Open education, Connexions, and OpenStax

Baraniuk is one of the founders of the

Open Education Open education is an educational movement founded on openness, with connections to other educational movements such as critical pedagogy, and with an educational stance which favours widening participation and inclusiveness in society. Open educa ...

movement. In 1999, Baraniuk launched " Connexions" (which was later re-named "

OpenStax CNX Connexions, later known as OpenStax CNX was a global repository of educational content provided by volunteers. The open source platform was provided and maintained by OpenStax, which is based at Rice University. The collection was available free ...

"), one of the first initiatives to offer free,

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

textbooks via the web.

continues to be one of the largest and most used open education platforms worldwide. , Baraniuk's own OpenStax CNX textbook, "Signals and Systems," has generated 9 million page views including a very popular translation into Spanish.

provides the digital publishing platform for

(formerly called "

OpenStax College OpenStax (formerly OpenStax College) is a nonprofit educational technology initiative based at Rice University. Since 2012, OpenStax has created peer-reviewed, openly licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low ...

"), a free and open library of college textbooks that as of May 2021 has saved 20 million US college students $1.7 billion. Baraniuk has been an active advocate and popularizer of open education – speaking at the TED 2006 conference – and was also one of the framers of the

Cape Town Open Education Declaration The Cape Town Open Education Declaration is a major international statement on open access, open education and open educational resources. It emerged from a conference on open education hosted in Cape Town on 14 and 15 September 2007 by the Shuttle ...

Awards and honors

Baraniuk has received numerous awards, including a

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

postdoctoral fellowship from NSERC in 1992, the National Young Investigator award from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

in 1994, a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research in 1995, the Rosenbaum Fellowship from the

Isaac Newton Institute The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is an international research institute for mathematics and its applications at the University of Cambridge. It is named after one of the university's most illustrious figures, the mathematician ...

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1998, 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 ...

ECE Young Alumni Achievement Award in 2000, and the Wavelet Pioneer Award from

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 ...

in 2008. He also received the 2012 Compressive Sampling Pioneer award from

for his work on compressive sensing and the 2014 Technical Achievement Award from

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 ...

br>Signal Processing Society
He was selected as a DO

(formerly National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow) in 2017.

(then called "Connexions") received the Tech Museum Laureate Award from the Tech Museum of Innovation in 2006, and Baraniuk was selected as one of Edutopia Magazine's Daring Dozen educators in 2007. In 2008, Baraniuk received the Internet Pioneer Award from

Berkman Center for Internet & Society The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, ...

, and in 2010 he received the

IEEE Signal Processing Society The IEEE Signal Processing Society (IEEE SPS) is one of the nearly 40 technical societies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the first one created. Its mission is to "advance and disseminate state-of-the-art scie ...

Education Award. In 2011 he received the WISE Education Award from the

Qatar Foundation The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development () is a state-led non-profit organization in Qatar, founded in 1995 by then-List of emirs of Qatar, emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his second wife Moza bint Nasser Al-Miss ...

. In 2015 he was awarded the

James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal. In 2021, he was awarded the Harold W. McGraw Prize in Education. Baraniuk was elected a Fellow of the

in 2001, a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

in 2009, a Fellow of the

National Academy of Inventors The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging inventors in academia, following the model of the National Academies of the United States. It was founded at the University of South Florida in 201 ...

in 2016, a Member of 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 2017, and 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 ...

in 2022. In 2025, he was awarded the IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal.

References

External links

Baraniuk's web page
at Rice. * ** TED Talk
The birth of the open-source learning revolution
(TED2006)
OpenStax

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Baraniuk, Richard G. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American electrical engineers Rice University faculty Grainger College of Engineering alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering alumni Qatar Foundation people