Irving S. Reed

Biography

Irving Stoy Reed received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 1989 "For contributions to multiple error-correcting codes, digital computer design, and automatic detection and processing of signals in noise."

Reed was born in Seattle, Washington on November 12, 1923. He was an engineer and mathematician known best for the error-correcting and error-detecting Reed-Solomon codes that he co-invented with Gustave Solomon. He also co-invented the Reed-Muller code which are linear error-correcting codes used in communications. In addition to his inventions, Reed made contributions to the development of radar, image processing, and signal processing technologies. He was a member of the team that built the MADDIDA, which was one of the first digital computers. He also developed the Register Transfer Language, a standard in the computer community. Reed worked at the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory as well as the University of Southern California in the Electrical Engineering-Systems department.

Reed was an IEEE Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He won numerous awards including the Claude E. Shannon Award, the 1995 IEEE Masaru Ibuka Award (with Gustave Solomon, and the 1998 IEEE Information Theory Society Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation. Reed died on September 11, 2012.