Thomas Kailath
Encyclopedia
Thomas Kailath is an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n electrical engineer, information theorist, control engineer, entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

 and the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, Emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

, at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. Professor Kailath has authored several books, including the well-known book Linear Systems, which ranks as one of the most referenced books in the field of linear system
Linear system
A linear system is a mathematical model of a system based on the use of a linear operator.Linear systems typically exhibit features and properties that are much simpler than the general, nonlinear case....

s. Kailath is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher
ISI highly cited researcher
ISI Highly Cited is a database of "highly cited researchers"—scientific researchers whose publications are most often cited in academic journals over the past decade, published by the Institute for Scientific Information...

.

Biography

Kailath was born in 1935 to a Malayalam-speaking Syrian Christian
Syrian Malabar Nasrani
The Syrian Malabar Nasrani people, also known as Saint Thomas Christians, "'Nasrani Mappila'" and Nasranis, are an ethnoreligious group from Kerala, India, adhering to the various churches of the Saint Thomas Christian tradition...

 family . His parents hailed from Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

. He studied at St. Vincent's High School, Pune and received his engineering Bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 from the College of Engineering, Pune
College of Engineering, Pune
College of Engineering, Pune is an engineering college in Pune, India. Established in 1854, it is the third oldest engineering college in Asia, after the College of Engineering, Guindy and IIT Roorkee...

, the University of Pune
University of Pune
The University of Pune , is a university located in northwestern Pune, India. It was founded in 1949. Spread over a campus, the university is home to 46 academic departments...

 in 1956. He received his Master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

  in 1959 and his doctorate degree in 1961, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 (MIT). He was the first India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n-born student to receive a doctorate in electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...

 from MIT.

Kailath is Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. Here he has supervised about 80 Ph.D. theses.

Kailath has been an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...

 (IEEE) Fellow since 1970. He is also a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering (NAE), the United States National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

 (NAS), American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 (AAAS), the Indian National Academy of Engineering and the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame.

Kailath was awarded the 2007 IEEE Medal of Honor
IEEE Medal of Honor
The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers . It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contribution or an extraordinary career in the IEEE fields of...

 for "exceptional development of powerful algorithms in the fields of communications, computing, control and signal processing", the 2006 IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal
IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal
The IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal is presented "for outstanding achievements in signal processing" theory, technology or commerce. The recipients of this award will receive a gold medal, together with a replica in bronze, a certificate and a honorarium.The award was established in...

, and the 1996 IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award (together with Ali H. Sayed
Ali H. Sayed
Ali H. Sayed is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles , where he teaches and conducts research on Adaptation, Learning, Statistical Signal Processing, and Signal Processing for Communications. He is the Director of the UCLA Adaptive Systems Laboratory...

).

He has been awarded the Padma Bhushan
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...

 award in 2009 by the Government of India for his contribution to Science and Engineering.

He has been awarded the Fundación BBVA Fronteras del Conocimiento de Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación award for break the miniaturization barrier of chips.

Kailath received praise from Dr. Patrick Dewilde, the Director of Delft Institute of Microelectronics and Submicron Technology at Delft University in the Netherlands.
He was married to Sarah Kailath from 1962 until her death in 2009. They have four children: Ann (wife of MIT professor George Verghese), Paul, Priya and Ryan. He is the brother-in-law of journalist T. J. S. George
T. J. S. George
Thayil Jacob Sony George , better known as TJS George, is a writer and biographer who received a Padma Bhushan award in 2011 in the field of literature and education. The fourth of eight siblings, TJS was born in Kerala, India to Thayil Thomas Jacob, a magistrate, and Chachiamma Jacob, a housewife....

, who is also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...

.

Kailath has co founded several high technology companies, including Integrated Systems (founded in 1980 and merged with WindRiver Systems in 1999), Numerical Technologies (founded in 1995 and acquired by Synopsys
Synopsys
Synopsys, Inc. is one of the largest companies in the Electronic Design Automation industry. Synopsys' first and best-known product is Design Compiler, a logic-synthesis tool. Synopsys offers a wide range of other products used in the design of an application-specific integrated circuit...

), and Excess Bandwidth Corporation (founded in 1998 and acquired by Virata Corporation in 2000, which itself merged with Globespan in 2001 and now Conexant
Conexant
Conexant Systems, Inc. is an American semiconductor company, formerly the semiconductor division of Rockwell International. Currently it's privately owned by Golden Gate Capital, an equity firm headquartered in San Francisco.-History:...

).

Publications

  • 1979, Linear Systems (Prentice-Hall Information and System Science Series) (1979, Prentice Hall, ISBN 978-0-13-536961-6)
  • 1987, Indefinite-Quadratic Estimation and Control: A Unified Approach to H2 and H-infinity Theories (Studies in Applied and Numerical Mathematics) with Ali H. Sayed
    Ali H. Sayed
    Ali H. Sayed is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles , where he teaches and conducts research on Adaptation, Learning, Statistical Signal Processing, and Signal Processing for Communications. He is the Director of the UCLA Adaptive Systems Laboratory...

     & Babak Hassibi
    Babak Hassibi
    Babak Hassibi is an Iranian-American electrical engineer who is currently professor of Electrical Engineering and head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology ....

     (1987, Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics, ISBN 978-0-89871-411-1)
  • 1997, Discrete Neural Computation: A Theoretical Foundation with Kai-Yeung Siu & Vwani Roychowdhury (1997, Prentice Hall, ISBN 978-0133007084)
  • 2000, Linear Estimation with Ali H. Sayed
    Ali H. Sayed
    Ali H. Sayed is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles , where he teaches and conducts research on Adaptation, Learning, Statistical Signal Processing, and Signal Processing for Communications. He is the Director of the UCLA Adaptive Systems Laboratory...

     & Babak Hassibi
    Babak Hassibi
    Babak Hassibi is an Iranian-American electrical engineer who is currently professor of Electrical Engineering and head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology ....

     (2000, Prentice Hall, ISBN 978-0-13-022464-4)

External links

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