CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Thomas S. Huang, the William L. Everitt Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been elected a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
The academy is China's most prestigious academic and advisory institution in engineering and technological sciences. Its missions are to promote the progress of engineering and technological sciences, foster the growth of outstanding talents in collaboration with the engineering and technological community, and enhance international cooperation in order to facilitate sustainable economic and social development in China. The academy named its seven new foreign members today (Dec. 12).
In June, Huang was a co-recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal. The award, one of the most prestigious honors of its kind, is named for the UI graduate and Nobel Prize-winning physicist who invented the integrated circuit.
Huangs research centers on image-sequence processing and its applications to digital television, pattern recognition and computer animation. The technology he created along with Arun Netravali, now chief scientist for Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, N.J., has been widely used in digital television, computer graphics and robotics.
Huang was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1963 to 1973, and at Purdue University from 1973 to 1980, prior to joining the UI. He received his bachelors degree from National Taiwan University and his masters and doctorate in electrical engineering from MIT. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in February.