Andrew Viterbi

Andrew James Viterbi, Ph.D. (Bergamo (Italy) March 9, 1935) is an Italian-American electrical engineer and businessman.

Viterbi was born in Bergamo, Italy to Jewish parents and emigrated with them in 1939 to the United States as a refugee. His original name was Andrea, but when he was naturalized in the US, his parents changed it to "Andrew", since "Andrea" is a female name in many English-speaking countries. Viterbi attended the Boston Latin School, and then entered MIT in 1952, studying electrical engineering. Distinguished faculty members contemporary to his education included Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener, Robert Fano and Bruno Rossi. After receiving both his BS and his MS in Electrical Engineering in 1957 from MIT, Viterbi received his Ph.D. in digital communications from the University of Southern California.

Viterbi was later a professor of electrical engineering at UCLA and UCSD. In 1967 he invented the Viterbi algorithm, which he used for decoding convolutionally encoded data. It is still used widely in cellular phones for error correcting codes, as well as for speech recognition, DNA analysis, and many other applications of Hidden Markov models. On advice of a lawyer, Viterbi did not patent the algorithm. [cite interview
last=Viterbi |first=Andrew
interviewer= David Morton
title= Andrew Viterbi, Electrical Engineer, an oral history
program= IEEE History Center
city=Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
date=1999
url=http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/aboutus/history_center/oral_history/pdfs/Viterbi377.pdf
accessdate=2007-06-04] Viterbi also helped to develop the CDMA standard for cell phone networks.

Viterbi was the cofounder of Linkabit Corporation, with Irwin Jacobs in 1968, a small military contractor. He was also the co-founder of Qualcomm Inc. with Dr. Jacobs in 1985. As of 2003, he is the president of the venture capital company The Viterbi Group. In 2000, Viterbi ranked 386th on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, with an estimated worth of $640 million.

In 2002, Viterbi dedicated the Andrew Viterbi '52 Computer Center at his alma mater, Boston Latin School. On March 2, 2004, the University of Southern California School of Engineering was renamed the Viterbi School of Engineering in his honor, following his $52 million donation to the school. [cite press release
title = Engineer/Entrepreneur and wife make $52 million naming gift to USC
publisher = University of Southern California
date =
url = http://viterbi.usc.edu/about/viterbi/viterbi_press_release.htm
accessdate = 2007-06-05 ] He is a member of the USC Board of Trustees. [http://www.usc.edu/about/administration/trustees/ Board of Trustees] , University of Southern California, "Accessed April 13, 2008."] . He is also on the Board of Trustees at The Scripps Research Institute.

Viterbi is married to Erna Finci, with whom he has three children.

elected publications

* cite book
title=Principles of Digital Communication and Coding (Communications and Information Theory)
author= Andrew J. Viterbi and Jim K. Omura
date=1979
isbn= 978-0070675162

* cite book
title=Recent Advances in Communication and Control Theory (Series in Communication and Control Systems)
author= Robert E. Kalman, G. I. Marchuk, A. E. Ruberti, and Andrew J. Viterbi
date=1987
isbn= 978-0911575460

References

External links

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20050308104709/http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/transcripts/viterbi.html IEEE History Center Interview in HTML]
* [http://viterbi.usc.edu/tools/download/?asset=/assets/002/29981.pdf&name=BENTSP06_p17-21_Viterbi.pdf The Quiet Genius] , Trudy E. Bell (PDF)
* [http://alum.mit.edu/ne/noteworthy/profiles/viterbi.html Noteworthy alumni page at MIT]
* [http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/electronicplay.aspx?fid=24825&id=E0C5478 Video: Andrew Viterbi on Fascist Italy, US Jews and Primo Levi]

Persondata
NAME= Viterbi, Andrew
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Italian-American electrical engineer and businessman
DATE OF BIRTH=1935-03-09
PLACE OF BIRTH=Bergamo, Italy
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=