Richard G. Baraniuk, the C. Sidney Burrus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Rice, has been awarded the 2025 IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal for outstanding achievements in signal processing, the most prestigious honor in the field.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers recognized Baraniuk for his “contributions to multiscale and sparse signal processing.”
Baraniuk, who is also a professor of computer science and of statistics, joined the Rice ECE faculty in 1992. A native of Canada, he earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering that year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
His research has focused on development of digital signal processing, image processing and machine learning systems, with contributions to the theory of wavelets, compressive sensing and deep learning. His “single-pixel camera,” developed with Kevin Kelly, associate professor of ECE at Rice, was the first compressive imaging device.
Baraniuk holds 45 U.S. and foreign patents, six of which have been licensed to Siemens to accelerate MRI scans. Baraniuk is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the IEEE.
He is the founder and director of the open education initiative OpenStax (formerly called Connexions), and founder and director of the learning science and education research infrastructure SafeInsights.
For his work in education, in 2021 Baraniuk was awarded the McGraw Prize, known informally as the “Nobel Prize of education,” by the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Family Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. The annual award goes to “outstanding individuals whose accomplishments are making a difference in the lives of students.” In 2015, he was awarded the IEEE James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal.
The Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal was established in 1995 and is given annually for outstanding achievements in signal processing. Baraniuk is the sixth Rice faculty member or doctoral alumnus to receive the honor. Among the others was the late C. Sidney Burrus ’57, formerly dean of engineering at Rice, longtime ECE faculty member and mentor to Baraniuk.
“So many people receiving the Kilby Medal is an indicator of Rice’s preeminence in digital signal processing research over the years,” he said.
Baraniuk will formally receive the medal at the 2025 IEEE Vision/Innovation Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony to be held April 24-25 in Tokyo.