Dr. Toby Berger is a noted American information theorist.

Berger was born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, received a bachelor's degree 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 Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1962, and doctoral degree in applied mathematics

Applied mathematics

Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with mathematical methods that are typically used in science, engineering, business, and industry. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical science with specialized knowledge...

 from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1968. From 1962-1968 he was also a senior scientist at Raytheon

Raytheon

Raytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...

. From 1968-2005 he taught at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, and in 2006 joined the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

. His primary interests have been in information theory

Information theory

Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...

, random field

Random field

A random field is a generalization of a stochastic process such that the underlying parameter need no longer be a simple real or integer valued "time", but can instead take values that are multidimensional vectors, or points on some manifold....

s, communication networks, video compression, signature verification, coherent signal processing

Signal processing

Signal processing is an area of systems engineering, electrical engineering and applied mathematics that deals with operations on or analysis of signals, in either discrete or continuous time...

, and quantum information theory.

Berger is a member of the National Academy of Engineering

National Academy of Engineering

The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...

, an IEEE Fellow

IEEE Fellow

An IEEE member is elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow for "unusual distinction in the profession and shall be conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest"...

, a past president of the IEEE Information Theory Society

IEEE Information Theory Society

The IEEE Information Theory Society , formerly the IEEE Information Theory Group, is a professional society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers focused on several aspects of information: its processing, transmission, storage, and usage; and the "foundations of the...

, and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

, the American Society for Engineering Education

American Society for Engineering Education

The American Society for Engineering Education is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education....

, Sigma Xi

Sigma Xi

Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society is a non-profit honor society which was founded in 1886 at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a handful of graduate students. Members elect others on the basis of their research achievements or potential...

, and Tau Beta Pi

Tau Beta Pi

The Tau Beta Pi Association is the oldest engineering honor society in the United States and the second oldest collegiate honor society in America. It honors engineering students who have shown a history of academic achievement as well as a commitment to personal and professional integrity...

. He received the 2002 Claude E. Shannon Award

Claude E. Shannon Award

The Claude E. Shannon Award of the IEEE Information Theory Society was instituted to honour consistent and profound contributions to the field of information theory. Each Shannon Award winner is expected to present a Shannon Lecture at the following IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory...

 for his contributions to information theory, and the 2011 IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal. Berger is also a co-founder of SightSpeed

SightSpeed

SightSpeed is a videoconferencing company, supplying VoIP and instant messaging solutions for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems. The service allows people to make video calls, computer-to-computer voice calls, and calls to regular telephones, with free and paid versions.In...

, a company which originated in his lab at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

.

Selected works

• Rate-distortion theory: A mathematical basis for data compression, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
• Digital Compression for Multimedia, San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann, 1998.