Abbas El Gamal

Affiliation:

Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
Packard Building, Rm 262
350 Serra Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94301

Home Page:

http://isl.stanford.edu/~abbas/

Biography:

Abbas El Gamal received his B.Sc. Honors degree in Electrical Engineering from Cairo University in 1972, and his M.S. in Statistics and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1977 and 1978, respectively. From 1978 to 1980, he was an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at USC. He has been on the Stanford University faculty since 1981, where he is currently the Hitachi America Professor in the School of Engineering. He served as the Director of the Information Systems Laboratory from 2004-2009. Prof. El Gamal's research contributions have spanned several areas, including network information theory, integrated circuit design and design automation, and digital imaging devices and systems. He has authored or coauthored over 200 papers and holds 30 patents in these areas. In network information theory, he is best known for his seminal contributions to the relay, broadcast, and interference channels,; multiple description coding; coding for noisy networks; and energy-efficient packet scheduling and throughput delay tradeoffs in wireless networks. He is coauthor of the book Network Information Theory (Cambridge Press, 2011). Prof. El Gamal is a Fellow of the IEEE and has received several honors and awards for his research contributions, including the 2004 INFOCOM Paper Award, the 2009 Padovani Lecture, and the 2012 Claude E. Shannon Award. He has been serving on the Board of Governors of the Information Theory Society since 2009 and is currently 2nd VP. Prof. El Gamal has also played key roles in several Silicon Valley companies. In 1984, he founded the LSI Logic Research Lab, which later became the Consumer Product Division. In 1986, he cofounded Actel, a pioneer in FPGAs. In 1999, he co-founded Silicon Architects, which was later acquired by Synposys. He served as Vice President of Synopsys from 1995 to 1997. He has also served on the board of directors and advisory boards of other semiconductor, design automation, and Biotech startups.

Research Interests:

• Shannon Theory

Awards Received:

• Claude E. Shannon Award (2012)

• Padovani Lecture (2009)

Participation & Positions:

Claude E. Shannon Award Selection Committee (Ex-officio, 2013)
Conference Committee (Ex-Officio, 2013)
Awards Committee (Ex-Officio and Chair, 2013)
Board of Governors (First Vice President, 2013)
Online Committee (Ex-officio, 2013)
Awards Committee (Ex-Officio, 2012)
Board of Governors (Second Vice President, 2012)
Membership and Chapters Committee (Ex-Officio and Chair, 2012)
Board of Governors (01/01/12 until 12/31/14)
Claude E. Shannon Award Selection Committee (Ex-officio, 2012)
Outreach Committee (Ex-officio, 2012)
Claude E. Shannon Award Selection Committee (Member, 2010)
Board of Governors (01/01/09 until 12/31/11)