Biography

Frank R. Kschischang received the B.A.Sc. degree (with honours) from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, in 1985 and the M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, in 1988 and 1991, respectively, all in electrical engineering. Since 1991 he has been a faculty member in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he presently holds the title of Distinguished Professor of Digital Communication. He served as ECE Associate Chair for Graduate Studies from June, 2015 to July, 2018. During 1997–98, he was a visiting scientist at MIT, Cambridge, MA; in 2005 he was a visiting professor at the ETH, Zürich, and in 2011 and again in 2012–13 he was a visiting Hans Fischer Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Technical University of Munich.

His research interests are focused primarily on the area of channel coding techniques, applied to wireline, wireless and optical communication systems and networks. In 1999 he was a recipient of the Ontario Premier's Research Excellence Award and in 2001 (renewed in 2008) he was awarded the Tier I Canada Research Chair in Communication Algorithms at the University of Toronto. In 2010 he was awarded the Killam Research Fellowship by the Canada Council for the Arts. Jointly with Ralf Koetter he received the 2010 Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award, and jointly with Mansoor Yousefi he received the 2018 IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award. In 2018 he was named Padovani Lecturer by the IEEE Information Theory Society. He is a recipient of the 2012 Canadian Award in Telecommunications Research. He is a Fellow of IEEE, of the Engineering Institute of Canada, of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and of the Royal Society of Canada.

During 1997–2000, he served as an Associate Editor for Coding Theory for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, and from 2014–16, he served as this journal's Editor-in-Chief. He also served as technical program co-chair for the 2004 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Chicago, and as general co-chair for ISIT 2008, Toronto. He served as the 2010 President of the IEEE Information Theory Society. In 2016, he received the Aaron D. Wyner Distinguished Service Award of the IEEE Information Theory Society.

A Surname Pronunciation Guide is available.

A Shorter Biography is also available.

Awards

International Awards

• Jan. 2006: IEEE Fellow
  • for contributions to trellis structures, graphical models and iterative decoding techniques for error-correcting codes.
• Jun. 2010: IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award
  • for the paper co-authored with Ralf Kötter entitled “Coding for Errors and Erasures in Random Network Coding,” published in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 54, no. 8, pp. 3579–3591, Aug. 2008. Awarded—on the basis of quality, originality, utility, timeliness and presentation—to an outstanding paper published in any publication of the IEEE Communications Society or the Information Theory Society within the previous three calendar years.
• Jan. 2012: Hans Fischer Senior Fellowship
  • awarded by the Institute of Advanced Study of the Technical University of Munich to support advanced research in optical communications.
• Jul. 2016: IEEE Information Theory Society Aaron D. Wyner Distinguished Service Award
  • for outstanding leadership in, and providing long-standing, expectional service to, the Information Theory community.
• Jan. 2018: IEEE Information Theory Society Padovani Lecturer
  • sponsored by a generous gift of Roberto Padovani, administered by the IEEE Foundation, the award defrays travel and accommodation expenses to a lecturer selected to speak at the North American Summer School of Information Theory
• Jun. 2018: IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award
  • for the paper co-authored with Mansoor Yousefi entitled “Information Transmission using the Nonlinear Fourier Transform, Parts I–III” published in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 60, pp. 4312–4369, Jul. 2014. Awarded annually to an outstanding publication in the fields of interest to the IEEE Information Theory Society appearing anywhere during the preceding four calendar years.

Canada- and Province-wide Awards

• May 1999: Premier's Research Excellence Award
• Jan. 2001: Tier I Canada Research Chair
• Jan. 2006: Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada
  • for significant contributions to engineering in Canada
• Jan. 2008: Tier I Canada Research Chair renewal
• Mar. 2010: Killam Research Fellowship
  • awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts to recognize distinguished Canadian scholars with an outstanding reputation in their area of research; provides two years of release time from teaching and administrative duties to pursue independent research.
• May 2012: Canadian Award in Telecommunications Research
  • recognizing distinguished contributions made by an individual in Canada to research in the field of telecommunications.
• Nov. 2012: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
• Jun. 2018: Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering

University and Faculty-level Awards

• May 2006: Faculty Teaching Award
  • awarded by the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering in recognition of superb accomplishment in teaching.
• May 2010: University of Toronto Award of Excellence—Faculty Award
  • a $1,000 prize recognizing excellence in teaching, research, and professional endeavours, awarded to one University of Toronto faculty member annually.
• Jan. 2015: named Distinguished Professor of Digital Communication.
• May 2019: Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering Sustained Excellence in Teaching Award
  • in recognition of superb accomplishment in teaching

Department-level Awards

• Nov. 1992: Electrical Engineering class of 9T3 “Professor of the Year.”
• Nov. 2001: Computer Engineering “Professor of the Year.”
• Nov. 2003: Electrical and Computer Engineering “Professor of the Year.”
• May 2007: ECE Service Award
  • for exemplary service and leadership in the development of the ECE flexible curriculum.
• May 2008: ECE Student Club Departmental Teaching Award.
• May 2009: ECE Spring Term Professorial Teaching Award.
• May 2014: ECE Departmental Teaching Award.

Curricum Vitae

Birthplace

Mettmann, Germany, September 15, 1962

Schooling

• 1967-1975: Simon Fraser Elementary School, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
• 1975-1980: Eric Hamber Secondary School, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Degrees

• B.A.Sc. (honours), Electrical Engineering, University of British Columbia, 1985.

• M.A.Sc., Electrical Engineering, University of Toronto, 1988.
  Thesis title: Block Encoding of M-ary Phase Shift Keying
  Advisor: S. Pasupathy.

• Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Toronto, 1991.
  Thesis title: Shaping and Coding Gain Criteria in Signal Constellation Design
  Advisor: S. Pasupathy.

Positions Held

July, 1991 to June 1996:	Assistant Professor	ECE Department, University of Toronto
July, 1996 to June 2000:	Associate Professor	ECE Department, University of Toronto
July, 2000 to present:	Professor	ECE Department, University of Toronto

Visiting Positions:

Aug. 1997–Jul. 1998:	Visiting Scientist	SIA Lab, MIT.
Feb. 2005–Apr. 2005 :	Guest Professor	ISI, ETH Zürich
Sep. 2011–Dec. 2011; Oct. 2012–May 2013:	Visiting Professor	LNT/IAS, Technical University of Munich

Affiliations

• Registered with PEO as a Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario.
• Director, Canadian Society of Information Theory.
• Fellow of IEEE.
• Member of IEEE Information Theory Society (profile), IEEE Communications Society.
• TUM Ambassador