Biography:

Toby Berger was born in New York, NY on September 4, 1940.  He received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from Yale University, New Haven, CT in 1962, and the M.S. and Ph.D.  degrees in applied mathematics from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA in 1964 and 1966, respectively.

From 1962 to 1968 he was a Senior Scientist at Raytheon Company, Wayland, MA, specializing in communication theory, information theory, and coherent signal processing.  In 1968 he joined the faculty of Cornell University,
 Ithaca, NY where he is presently the Irwin and Joan Jacobs Professor of Engineering. His research interests include information theory, random fields, communication networks, wireless communications, video
 compression, voice and signature compression and verification, infobiology, neuroinformation theory, quantum information theory, and coherent signal processing.  He is the (co)-author of Rate Distortion Theory:  A Mathematical Basis for Data Compression, Digital Compression for Multimedia: Principles and Standards, and Information Measures for Discrete Random Fields.

Berger has served as editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and as president of the IEEE Information Theory Group.   He has been received the Shannon Award from the IEEE Information Theory Society and will deliver the Shannon Lecture at the 2002 IEEE ISIT in Lausanne, Switzerland, in July 2002.  Berger has been a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Japan Society for Promotion of Science, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China and the Fulbright Foundation.  In 1982 he received the Frederick E. Terman Award of the American Society for Engineering Education. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a life member of Tau Beta Pi.