Viterbi set to receive National Medal of Science

SAN FRANCISO—Wireless industry pioneer Andrew Viterbi, co-founder of Qualcomm Inc. and creator of the Viterbi Algorithm, will be honored Monday (Sept. 29) along with six other researchers and inventors in receiving a National Medal of Science for 2007.

U.S. President George W. Bush will present the medals, which honor individuals for pioneering scientific research, in a White House ceremony. The awards are for the year 2007 but customarily announced and presented later in the year.

Standards for digital cellular telephony utilize the Viterbi algorithm for interference suppression, as do most digital satellite communication systems.

Prior to Qualcom, Viterbi co-founded Linkabit Corp., a digital communications company. He served as a professor at the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science until 1973 and continued teaching on a part-time basis at the University of California, San Diego until 1994, where he is currently a professor emeritus.

Viterbi received his bachelor's and master's degrees from MIT and his Ph.D. in digital communications from the University of Southern California. Other awardees will include:

Fay Ajzenberg-Selove - University of Pennsylvania

Mostafa El-Sayed - Georgia Institute of Technology

Leonard Kleinrock - University of California, Los Angeles

Robert Lefkowitz - Duke University

Bert W. O'Malley - Baylor College of Medicine

Charles P. Slichter - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The ceremony will be broadcast live with a link accessible on www.WhiteHouse.gov.