IEEE Awards Booklet - 2012 - 22

I E E E

T E C H N I C A L

2012 IEEE
Judith A. Resnik Award

F I E L D

AWA R D S

2012 IEEE Robotics and Automation
Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Aerospace and
Electronic Systems, Control Systems, and
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Societies

Sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and
Automation Society

Pramod K. Varshney

Bernard Roth

For contributions to and leadership in the theory and
practice of multisensor data fusion for aerospace and
bioengineering applications

For fundamental contributions to robot kinematics,
manipulation, and design

Pramod K. Varshney's pioneering work on distributed detection
theory and data fusion methods have fueled the proliferation of
wireless multisensor networks for the aerospace industry and
other applications. Dr. Varshney's distributed detection methods
provide a more effective means of target detection by using a
cooperative team of multiple sensors compared to using a
single radar or sonar element. His 1997 Distributed Detection
and Data Fusion (Springer-Verlag) was the first book published
on the topic and has been cited extensively. His methods
overcame the challenges of the distributed nature of sensing
and the bandwidth constraints for communication of sensor information. He has also made important contributions to image
processing with methods for mutual information-based image
registration, feature extraction, and classification using hyperspectral data. An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Varshney is a Distinguished
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at
Syracuse University, N.Y.

Bernard Roth's pioneering contributions to robot kinematics
and design have shaped the field of robotics and provided the
foundation for the advanced capabilities seen in today's articulated robotic devices. His research on spatial linkage synthesis
in 1967 led to development of the spatial curvature theory for
mixed-motion design specifications for application to robots.
In 1979, he co-authored (with O. Bottema) Theoretical
Kinematics, considered by one reviewer as the best kinematics
book of the century. Dr. Roth and his students at Stanford have
made innovative contributions to scientific and industrial applications of robotics, including coordination software used for
industrial robots, the first continuous curvature (snake-like)
robot, the Stanford Arm, and the original grasp matrix for multifingered hands. Dr. Roth is the Rodney H. Adams Professor of
Engineering at Stanford University, Calif. and the academic
director of Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.

2012 IEEE
Frank Rosenblatt Award

2012 IEEE
David Sarnoff Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Computational
Intelligence Society

Sponsored by SRI International Sarnoff

Vladimir N. Vapnik

Hideo Ohno

For development of support vector machines
and statistical learning theory as a foundation of
biologically inspired learning

For seminal contributions and leadership in bridging
semiconductor electronics with magnetism and spintronics

Vladimir N. Vapnik's pioneering work became the foundation of
a new research field known as "statistical learning theory" that
has transformed how computers learn in tackling complex
problems. Working with Alexey Chervonenkis in Moscow during
the late 1960s/early 1970s, he developed the VapnikChervonenkis (VC) learning theory. This theory established a
fundamental quantity to represent the limitations of learning
machines. He later created principles to handle the generalization factors defined by VC theory, known as structural risk
minimization. His research was unknown to the Western world
until his arriving in the United States shortly before the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Working with AT&T Laboratories in Holmdel,
N.J. during the 1990s, he put his theories into practical use with
support vector machine (SVM) algorithms for recognizing
complex patterns in data for classification and regression
analysis tasks. Dr. Vapnik is a professor with Columbia University,
New York, N.Y.

Hideo Ohno's vision and leadership in integrating semiconductor
technology with spin-transport electronics has built the foundation for the field of spintronics and enabled advanced
magnetic-based memory and logic circuits at the nanometer
scale. Dr. Ohno's research on synthesizing a new class of ferromagnetic semiconductors during the late 1980s led to new device
concepts that combined spin and charge degrees of freedom and
demonstrated control of ferromagnetism by electric fields. He
further developed these ferromagnetic semiconductors to demonstrate electrical injection of spin-polarized circuits in
ferromagnetic heterostructures (1999), control of ferromagnetic
phase transition using electric fields (2000), and electric control of
magnetization direction (2008). An IEEE Member, Dr. Ohno is a
professor at the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics and Spintronics
within the Research Institute of Electrical Communication at
Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, where he also directs the
Center for Spintronics Integrated Systems.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2012