Robert Wendell Lucky

Joined AT&T Bell Laboratories where he was initially involved in studying ways of sending digital information over telephone lines. The best known outcome of this work was his invention of the adaptive equalizer - a technique for correcting distortion in telephone signals which is used in all high speed data transmission today. The textbook on data communications which he co-authored became the most cited reference in the communications field over the period of a decade. At Bell Labs he moved through a number of levels to become Executive Director of the Communications Sciences Research Division in 1982, where he was responsible for research on the methods and technologies for future communication systems. In 1992 he left Bell Labs to assume his present position at Telcordia Technologies. He has been active in professional activities, and has served as President of the Communications Society of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and as Vice President and Executive Vice President of the parent IEEE itself. He has been editor of several technical journals, including the Proceedings of the IEEE, and since 1982 he has written the bi-monthly Reflections column of personalized observations about the engineering profession in Spectrum magazine. In 1993 these Reflections columns were collected in the IEEE Press book Lucky Strikes...Again. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also a consulting editor for a series of books on communications through Plenum Press. He has been on the advisory boards or committees of many universities and government organizations, and was Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the United States Air Force from 1986-1989. He was the 1987 recipient of the prestigious Marconi Prize for his contributions to data communications, and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Purdue University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has also been awarded the Edison Medal of the IEEE and the Exceptional Civilian Contributions Medal of the U.S. Air Force.