David A. Huffman

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David Albert Huffman (born August 9, 1925 in Ohio - † October 7, 1999 in Santa Cruz , California ) was an American computer pioneer. Among other things, he developed the Huffman coding , a lossless compression process .

biography

David A. Huffman's parents divorced soon after he was born. He learned to speak late, so his mother took a job as a mathematics teacher at a special school in order to be able to place him there too. In many tests, however, Huffman proved to be gifted, and so he graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the age of 18 . He then became a radar officer for the US Navy . Back at Ohio State University, he received his master's degree in 1949.

As part of his D.Sc. -Studying at MIT , he developed the Huffman code in a seminar paper with Robert Fano in 1952 . In 1953 he received his doctorate with Samuel H. Caldwell with the work The Synthesis of Sequential Switching Circuits , which was awarded the Louis E. Levy Medal of the Franklin Institute .

He initially stayed at MIT and in 1967 became a founding member of the computer science faculty at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), which he headed from 1970 to 1973. In 1994 he retired, but remained active in research and teaching until shortly before his death in 1999.

His awards included the IEEE Fellow, the 1973 W. Wallace McDowell Award of the IEEE and the Richard W. Hamming Medal of the IEEE in 1999 , which he could no longer accept as he had previously succumbed to cancer.

Huffman was married twice and had two daughters and a son in his first marriage.

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personal data
SURNAME Huffman, David A.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Huffman, David Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Ohio
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1999
Place of death Santa Cruz