Purdue alumnus elected to the National Academy of Engineering
Ramalingam Chellappa, alumnus of Purdue University’s Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. The NAE cited Chellappa “for contributions to digital image analysis, automatic face recognition and applications.” He is a pioneer in the area of artificial intelligence.
Chellappa is currently Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and professor emeritus of the University of Maryland. He earned his MSEE and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1978 and 1981 respectively. Chellappa’s work in computer vision, pattern recognition, and machine learning have had a profound impact on areas including biometrics, smart cars, forensics, and 2D and 3D modeling of faces, objects, and terrain. His work in motion capturing and imaging shows promise for future use in health care and medicine.
“I am humbled and honored to have been elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering,” Chellappa said. “I owe this to the loving support I receive from my family, the great mentoring I received from many pioneers in computer vision and pattern recognition, as well as my doctoral students, who patiently taught me much of what I know.”
Chellappa was among 106 new members and 18 international members announced as part of NAE’s Class of 2023. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education. Members advise the U.S. government on matters pertaining to engineering and technology.
Chellappa is the 2020 recipient of the Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal for his contributions to image and video processing, one of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) top honors. He is an IEEE life fellow and a Fellow of AAAI, AAAS, ACM, AIMBE, IAPR, OSA and NAI, and previously served as editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. Among many other honors, Chellappa has also won technical achievement awards from the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Signal Processing Society; the latter also awarded him with its highest honor, the Society Award.
Sources: Rama Chellappa elected to National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Engineering Elects 106 Members and 18 International Members