Fwd: IP: Huffman (of Huffman encoding) has died

[Eugene Garfield]

 >
> SANTA CRUZ, CA--David A. Huffman, the founding
> faculty member of the
> Computer Science Department at the University of
> California, Santa Cruz,
> and a pioneer in the
> field, died at a local hospital on Thursday, October
> 7, after a 10-month
> battle with
> cancer. He was 74.
>
> "Besides being a dear friend and a great colleague,
> David was one of the
> grand men in
> his field," said Patrick Mantey, dean of UCSC's Jack
> Baskin School of
> Engineering.
> "He made major contributions not only to the fields
> of computing and
> information
> science, but also to the development of the School
> of Engineering at
> UCSC, so this is a
> great loss."
>
> A memorial service for Huffman is planned, but no
> details are available
> at this time.
>
> Huffman is probably best known for the development
> of the Huffman Coding
> Procedure,
> the result of a term paper he wrote while a graduate
> student at the
> Massachusetts
> Institute of Technology (MIT). "Huffman Codes" are
> used in nearly every
> application that
> involves the compression and transmission of digital
> data, such as fax
> machines,
> modems, computer networks, and high-definition
> television.
>
> Huffman joined the faculty at MIT in 1953. In 1967,
> he came to UC Santa
> Cruz as the
> founding faculty member of the Computer Science
> Department. He played a
> major role
> in the development of the department's academic
> programs and the hiring
> of its faculty,
> and served as chair from 1970 to 1973. He retired in
> 1994, but remained
> active until
> recently as an emeritus professor, teaching
> information theory and
> signal analysis
> courses.
>
> Huffman made important contributions in many
> different areas, including
> information
> theory and coding, signal designs for radar and
> communications
> applications, and
> design procedures for asynchronous logical circuits.
> As an outgrowth of
> his work on the
> mathematical properties of "zero curvature"
> surfaces, Huffman developed
> his own
> techniques for folding paper into unusual sculptured
> shapes.
>
> Huffman's accomplishments earned him numerous awards
> and honors. Most
> recently,
> he received the 1999 Richard W. Hamming Medal from
> the Institute of
> Electrical and
> Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in recognition of his
> exceptional
> contributions to
> information sciences. He also received the Louis E.
> Levy Medal of the
> Franklin Institute
> for his doctoral thesis on sequential switching
> circuits, a
> Distinguished Alumnus Award
> from Ohio State University, and the W. Wallace
> McDowell Award. He was a
> charter
> recipient of the Computer Pioneer Award from the
> IEEE Computer Society,
> and he
> received a Golden Jubilee Award for Technological
> Innovation from the
> IEEE
> Information Theory Society in 1998.
>
> A native of Ohio, Huffman earned his B.S. in
> electrical engineering from
> Ohio State
> University at the age of 17. He then served in the
> U.S. Navy as a radar
> maintenance
> officer on a destroyer that helped to clear mines in
> Japanese and
> Chinese waters after
> World War II. He subsequently earned his M.S. degree
> from Ohio State and
> his Ph.D.
> from MIT, also in electrical engineering.
>
> David Huffman is survived by his wife, Marilyn, of
> Santa Cruz; two
> daughters, Elise and
> Linda Huffman, both of Santa Cruz; a son, Stephen
> Huffman, of Santa
> Cruz; a
> son-in-law, Jeff Grubb, of Santa Cruz; a
> stepdaughter, Marti Homer
> Kehlet of
> Sacramento, her husband, Daret, and their daughter,
> Karsen; and a
> stepson, Darin
> Homer of Prunedale, his wife, Jane, and their son,
> Ryan.
>
> At the family's request, contributions in David
> Huffman's name may be
> made to the
> Hospice Caring Project of Santa Cruz County or the
> American Cancer
> Society, Santa
> Cruz Chapter.
>
>


=====
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eugene Garfield, Ph.D.
Chairman Emeritus, ISI, 3501 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Publisher, THE SCIENTIST, 3600 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19104 and www.the-scientist.com
Tel: 215-243-2205 // Fax: 215-387-1266
email:  garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu
Home Page: http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu
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