IEEE Awards Booklet - 2017 - 8

2017 ieee medals

IEEE Honorary Membership

IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal

Sponsored by Nokia Bell Labs

Sir James Dyson

H. Vincent Poor

For achievements in industrial design,
entrepreneurship, and manufacturing
technology, and for services to the engineering profession

For fundamental contributions to signal
processing and its application to digital
communications

The developer of the world's first bagless vacuum cleaner and
many other novel products pervasive in today's society, Sir James
Dyson has reignited the spirit of invention around the world and
championed the role that engineering and design can play in affecting positive change. Creating a multibillion-dollar industry
based on his own inventions, Dyson is a shining example of how
perseverance in the face of failure can lead to great accomplishments. Unhappy with the suction performance of a new vacuum
cleaner, Dyson developed the idea of a bagless system using cyclonic separation to create a vacuum that would not lose suction
as it picked up dirt. Over the course of five years and over 5,127
prototypes later, Dyson perfected his concept and introduced the
G-Force cleaner. Facing industry opposition in the United Kingdom, Dyson brought the product to Japan in 1983. Despite being limited only to catalog sales, the cleaner was very popular in
Japan, and Dyson used the proceeds to build his own company in
Britain. He was then able to launch the Dyson DC01 vacuum in
1993, and it quickly became Britain's best-selling vacuum. Dyson
is committed to creating environments that position engineering as an attractive option for students seeking careers in science
and technology, so he launched the James Dyson Foundation in
2002. Encouraging students to realize their engineering potential
by thinking diﬀerently and by not being afraid to make mistakes,
the Foundation provides resources for schools and also awards
students for innovative product designs. Dyson has also demonstrated his commitment to engineering and design innovation by
supporting research facilities such as a new technology hub at
Cambridge University and the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London.
A member of the United Kingdom Order of Merit and Fellow
of the Royal Society of London, Dyson is the chief executive officer of Dyson Company, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, UK.

Continually expanding the frontiers of digital communications,
H. Vincent Poor's development of advanced signal processing
methods for wireless networks not only eased the early transition
to digital mobile networks but also plays a key role in advancing today's communications systems in which the need for new
capacity must overcome the challenges of bandwidth limitations.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Poor tackled the obstacles of
interference and insuﬃcient capacity with innovations in interference mitigation that allowed wireless receivers to operate effectively in areas limited by interference. His fundamental work
on multiuser detection includes the concept of turbo multiuser
detection, which introduced the principle of cross-layer interaction in wireless networks; adaptive methods, which allow for
interference suppression while having only limited knowledge
of the structure of the interference; and space-time methods applicable to the multiple antenna systems that have been integral to
the success of modern high-capacity networks. These contributions have impacted modern mobile technology, satellite systems,
and local-area networks, coinciding with the rise of widespread
consumer wireless communications and providing key methodologies for addressing the explosive demand for capacity. Poor's
recent work has focused on communications problems arising
in emerging smart-grid and social networking applications, including the development of privacy-preserving communication
techniques. Poor has also introduced new approaches based on
game theory for modeling the behavior of wireless networks of
autonomous terminals.
An IEEE Life Fellow and member of the U.S. National Academies of Engineering and Sciences, Poor is the Michael Henry
Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.

Scope: For those who have rendered meritorious service to humanity in the IEEE's designated fields of interest and who are not
members of IEEE.

Scope: For exceptional contributions to communications and networking sciences and engineering.

8 | 2017 IEEE awards bOOkLET

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2017