IEEE Awards Booklet - 2013 - 9

2013 IEEE MEDALS

IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal

IEEE Medal for Innovations
in Healthcare Technology

Sponsored by Qualcomm, Inc.

Sponsored by the IEEE Engineering
in Medicine and Biology Society

Robert Calderbank

Robert S. Langer

For fundamental contributions
to coding theory that impacted
voice-band modems and wireless
communication

For pioneering and innovative therapies using micro- and nanoengineering
approaches and biomaterials to tissue
engineering, drug delivery, and cancer
therapeutics

Robert Calderbank's pioneering coding algorithms have improved reliability of wireless networks and played a key role in developing voice-band modems that helped the early proliferation
of the Internet. Known for combining serious mathematics with
practical engineering sense, Dr. Calderbank has developed algorithms that enable wired and wireless communications systems to
transfer data near full potential. He co-invented space-time codes,
first published in 1997, to improve reliability of multiple-antenna
wireless communications systems for better cellular performance.
Space-time codes involve transmitting multiple copies of data
over multiple antennas for more reliable decoding on the receiver
end. The transmit diversity provided by space-time codes was a
major breakthrough in wireless communications technology and
can be found in many wireless local- and wide-area network standards and products. A major tool to combat signal fading, simple
space-time codes are now incorporated in billions of cell phones.
Dr. Calderbank's pioneering work during the 1980s and early
1990s on coded modulation methods for wireline communications greatly influenced the development of modems that allowed
households to connect to the Internet.The algorithms developed
by Dr. Calderbank have enabled over a billion voice-band modems to communicate at close to theoretical capacity limits.
An IEEE Fellow and member of the U.S. National Academy
of Engineering, Dr. Calderbank's many honors include two IEEE
Information Theory Society Prize Paper Awards (1994 and 1999)
and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal (2000). Dr. Calderbank
is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke
University, Durham, N.C.

Robert S. Langer is considered the single greatest contributor to
medical nanotechnology for his pioneering research and inventions that have provided innovative methods to improve the diagnosis and treatment of disease for countless patients. Dr. Langer's
development in 1976 of principles enabling the use of polymers
for the slow delivery of large molecules, such as peptides, has provided the foundation for much of today's controlled drug-delivery technology. Considered seminal to the field of "controlled
release" for treating diseases, Dr. Langer's work has helped lead
to drug-delivery systems providing numerous therapies to over a
hundred million patients every year that otherwise would not be
possible. Dr. Langer developed the first localized, long-acting chemotherapy treatment for brain cancer providing direct delivery to
the tumor. His localized delivery concepts have also been applied
to polymer-coated stents for treating cardiovascular disease and
eliminating restenosis. Dr. Langer is responsible for creating the
field of tissue engineering, helping to develop the first approach
to creating systems that deliver cells on three-dimensional polymer systems. He also discovered approaches to controlling stemcell differentiation and stem-cell growth. Thousands of scientists
today are creating life-saving tissue-engineered products based on
Dr. Langer's research.
An IEEE Member, Dr. Langer is one of a very few individuals elected to the U.S. Institute of Medicine, the U.S National
Academy of Engineering, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Langer's many awards include the Charles Stark Draper
Award (2002), the Albany Medical Center Prize (2005), the U.S.
National Medal of Science (2007), the U.S. National Medal of
Technology and Innovation (2011), and the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2013). Dr. Langer is the David H. Koch Institute Professor at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

Scope: For exceptional contributions to information sciences,
systems, and technology

Scope: For outstanding contributions and/or innovations in
engineering within the fields of medicine, biology, and healthcare
technology

9 | 2013 IEEE AWARDS BOOKLET

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2013