Every year, IEEE recognizes individual researchers, innovators, and collaborative teams whose technical achievements and leadership have made a lasting impact on technology, engineering, and society worldwide with its Technical Field Awards.
The honorees are selected by the IEEE Awards Board based on their extraordinary technical achievements, societal impact, and leadership in specialized engineering disciplines and are approved by the IEEE Board of Directors.
“The 2027 IEEE Technical Field Award recipients embody the relentless spirit of innovation and ingenuity that defines our global community,” said Mary Ellen Randall, 2026 IEEE president and CEO in a news release. “Across microelectronics, artificial intelligence, medical robotics, wireless networks, energy conversion, and technical education, their groundbreaking accomplishments continue to push the boundaries of science and solve critical challenges for the benefit of humanity.”
The recipients are:
Sponsors: IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology, IEEE Circuits and Systems, and IEEE Signal Processing societies
IEEE Life Fellow Kullervo Hynynen
Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, and the University of Toronto
“For pioneering contributions to the development, advancement, and clinical translation of therapeutic ultrasound.”
Sponsor: The Brunetti Bequest
IEEE Member Edward Charles Gage
IEEE Fellow Ganping Ju
IEEE Fellow Jan-Ulrich Thiele
Seagate Technology in Cupertino, Calif.
“For contributions to heat-assisted magnetic technology powering ultra-high-capacity hard disk drives and enabling greater storage of digital information.”
Sponsors: IEEE Control Systems Society and Friends and Family of Roger W. Brockett
IEEE Life Fellow Arjan van der Schaft
Bernoulli Institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands (Retired)
“For contributions to robust and geometric approaches to nonlinear control, hybrid systems, and the control of physical systems.”
Sponsors: IEEE Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing, and IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology societies
IEEE Fellow Zoya Popović
University of Colorado Boulder
“For contributions to microwave and millimeter-wave circuit designs, including power amplifiers, power-combining, and wireless power systems.”
Sponsor: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL)
IEEE Life Fellow Chin-Hui Lee
“For contributions to and leadership in technologies that enable automatic speech and speaker recognition, including innovations in adaptive learning and discriminative training.”
Sponsor: Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL)
IEEE Fellow Nicholas Dimitrios Sidiropoulos
University of Virginia in Charlottesville
“For contributions to signal processing methods for analyzing complex data and identifying patterns in multiple dimensions.”
Sponsor: IEEE Electron Devices Society
IEEE Fellow John Robert Brews
University of Arizona in Tucson (Retired)
“For foundational contributions to the physics and technology underlying MOS devices and circuits.”
Sponsor: Sony Group Corporation
IEEE Honorary Member Mike Lazaridis
Quantum Valley Investments in Waterloo, Ont., Canada
“For transformative contributions to mobile communication through visionary leadership that reshaped global consumer technology.”
Sponsor: Google LLC
IEEE Fellow Matthew Roughan
Adelaide University in Australia
“For foundational contributions to analyzing Internet traffic and network structures, enabling better network management and understanding.”
Sponsor: IEEE Industry Applications Society
IEEE Fellow Akshay Kumar Rathore
National University of Singapore
“For developing innovative current-fed and multilevel power electronics converters.”
Sponsors: Tektronix Inc. and the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society
IEEE Life Fellow Pasquale Daponte
University of Sannio in Benevento, Italy
“For contributions to the measurement and standardization of analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters.”
Sponsor: IEEE Circuits and Systems Society
IEEE Life Fellow Janusz Rajski
Siemens Digital Industries Software in Wilsonville, Ore.
“For contributions to testing digital integrated circuits at the silicon level.”
Sponsor: The IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Memorial Fund
IEEE Life Fellow Rama Chellappa
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
“For contributions to multi-disciplinary graduate education and mentoring of doctoral students in image processing, computer vision, and pattern recognition.”
Sponsor: NEC Corporation
IEEE Member Amin Vahdat
Google in Mountain View, Calif.
“For developing network systems that scale data centers to support modern cloud computing and machine learning.”
Sponsor: Nokia Bell Labs
IEEE Life Member Jens-Rainer Ohm
RWTH Aachen University in Germany (Professor Emeritus)
IEEE Life Fellow Gary J. Sullivan
Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco
IEEE Member Benjamin Bross
Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications Heinrich-Hertz-Institut in Berlin
“For leadership in and contributions to developing the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) international standard, which improves the efficiency of digital video compression.”
Sponsor: IEEE Power Electronics Society
IEEE Fellow Paolo Mattavelli
University of Padova in Padua, Italy
“For contributions to advanced modeling and control of power electronics converters.”
Sponsor: IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society
IEEE Life Fellow Wanda Kay Gass
Texas Instruments in Bellevue, Wash. (Retired)
“For pioneering contributions to programmable digital signal processing systems through innovations in circuit design, system architecture, and silicon compilers.”
Sponsor: The IEEE Frederik Philips Award Fund
Recipient: IEEE Member Ann B. Kelleher
Intel in Portland, Ore. (Retired)
“For leading the historic advancement of CMOS process technology, culminating in the first node with backside power delivery.”
Sponsor: IEEE Photonics Society
IEEE Life Fellow Martin David Dawson
University of Strathclyde in Glasgow
“For contributions to microstructured and wide-bandgap semiconductor optoelectronics and for leadership in technological innovation.”
Sponsor: IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
IEEE Life Fellow Russell H. Taylor
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
“For contributions to, leadership in, and the clinical translation of surgical and medical robotics.”
Sponsor: IEEE Computational Intelligence Society
IEEE Life Fellow Shun-ichi Amari
Teikyo University in Tokyo
“For foundational contributions to neural network theory and information geometry.”
Sponsor: IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society
Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel
“For leadership in the development of laser-driven particle sources and advancing the technology toward practical applications.”
Sponsors: Hitachi, Ltd. and the IEEE Computer Society
IEEE Fellow Jaideep Vaidya
Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
IEEE Senior Member Lucila Ohno-Machado
IEEE Senior Member Xiaoqian Jiang
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
“For leadership in designing and deploying privacy-preserving distributed clinical research infrastructures that enable secure, large-scale collaboration using health data.”
Sponsor: IEEE Standards Association
IEEE Life Fellow Mehmet Ulema
Manhattan University in New York City (Professor Emeritus)
“For leadership in the development and standardization of architecture, management, and protocols used in wireless communications and data networks.”
Sponsor: Nokia Bell Labs
IEEE Fellow Gerhard Fettweis
Technische Universität Dresden Barkhausen Institut in Germany
“For contributions to physical-layer communication technology that have had an impact on the global wireless industry.”
Sponsors: Wolong Electric Group Co. Ltd. and the IEEE Industry Applications and IEEE Power & Energy societies
IEEE Life Fellow Pragasen Pillay
Concordia University in Montreal
“For contributions to the modeling, design, and application of electric machines in industrial, transportation, and renewable energy applications.”
Sponsors: The late Dr. Kiyo Tomiyasu and the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing and the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology societies
IEEE Fellow Yun Raymond Fu
Northeastern University in Boston
“For contributions to computer vision and augmented human-machine interaction.”
Sponsors: IEEE Industry Applications, IEEE Industrial Electronics, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems, IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology, IEEE Power Electronics, IEEE Power & Energy, and IEEE Vehicular Technology societies
IEEE Fellow Chunting Chris Mi
“For contributions to advancing electric and hybrid electric vehicle technologies.”
Sponsors: IEEE Electronics Packaging Society and Friends of Rao R. Tummala
IEEE Fellow Ravi Mahajan
Intel in Chandler, Ariz.
“For contributions to the development of technology that connects multiple chips within advanced electronic packages.”
Sponsor: IEEE Education Society
IEEE Fellow Rhonda Rene Franklin
University of Minnesota in Minneapolis
“For leadership in advancing inclusive workforce development initiatives that create clear and accessible career pathways via undergraduate engineering education.”
Sponsor: IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society
IEEE Life Fellow Peng Shi
Adelaide University in Australia
“For contributions to artificial intelligence-based methods for robust control and filtering in complex systems.”
Nominate a colleague
Nominations are now open for the 2028 Technical Field Awards. The deadline to submit a nomination is 15 January.
For more information on the awards, please visit the IEEE Awards webpage.
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