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George David Forney Jr. (born March 6, 1940) is an American electrical engineer who made contributions in telecommunication system theory, specifically in coding theory and information theory.

Biography

Forney received the B.S.E. degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University in 1961, summa cum laude, and the M.S. and Sc.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963 and 1965, respectively. His Sc.D thesis introduced the idea of concatenated codes. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering (1989) and National Academy of Sciences (2003). He is a long-time faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Among other things, he is generally credited with being the first to recognize the optimality and practical importance of the Viterbi algorithm, and his tutorial paper on the subject is widely cited. His work in the Viterbi algorithm and in advancing the understanding of coding theory in general influenced the design of modern digital modems.

In 1965 he joined the Codex Corporation. His design resulted in the first mass-produced 9600 bit/s modem introduced in 1971. He spent the academic year of 1971–1972 at Stanford University, and then returned to Codex. He became vice president of research and development at Codex, through its acquisition by Motorola in 1977, serving in both management and technical positions.

He received the IEEE Edison Medal in 1992 "for original contributions to coding, modulation, data communication modems, and for industrial and research leadership in communications technology". In 1995 he received the Claude E. Shannon Award from the IEEE Information Theory Society and he received twice, in 1990 and in 2009, the IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award. In 1998 Forney received a Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation from the IEEE Information Theory Society. He has also received the 2016 IEEE Medal of Honor for "pioneering contributions to the theory of error-correcting codes and the development of reliable high-speed data communications".

See also

• Forney algorithm

References

1. Anderson, Margo (April 20, 2016). "David Forney: The Man Who Launched a Million Modems". IEEE Spectrum.
2. G. D. Forney. The Viterbi algorithm. Proceedings of the IEEE 61(3):268–278, March 1973.
3. G. David Forney Jr (March 8, 2005). The Viterbi Algorithm: A Personal History. Viterbi Conference, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. arXiv:cs/0504020v2. Bibcode:2005cs........4020F.
4. "G. David Forney, Jr". IEEE Global History Network. Retrieved August 8, 2013.
5. "IEEE Edison Medal Recipients" (PDF). IEEE. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 19, 2010. Retrieved January 2, 2011.
6. "Claude E. Shannon Award". IEEE Information Theory Society. Archived from the original on June 30, 2012. Retrieved January 5, 2011.
7. "IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award Recipients" (PDF). IEEE. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 24, 2010. Retrieved January 2, 2011.
8. "Golden Jubilee Awards for Technological Innovation". IEEE Information Theory Society. Retrieved July 14, 2011.
9. "IEEE Medal of Honor Recipients" (PDF). IEEE. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 22, 2015. Retrieved December 8, 2015.

External links

• Recent publications at the arXiv.

• American electrical engineers
• American information theorists
• 1940 births
• Living people
• Fellows of the IEEE
• Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• IEEE Edison Medal recipients
• MIT School of Engineering faculty
• 20th-century American engineers
• IEEE Medal of Honor recipients
• American telecommunications engineers
• Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni
• MIT School of Engineering alumni
• Stanford University staff