A Tribute to Punya Thitimajshima: a co-inventor of turbo codes

            In the early morning of the 9th of May 2006, we were shocked that Dr. Punya Thitimajshima passed away at his untimely 51 years of age after his painful fight with a fatal disease. The tragedy of that day encompassed the short life of this spectacular yet simple man who co-contributed greatly to the communication engineering field. He was the recipient of the 1998 IEEE Information Theory Society Golden Jubilee Award for his work together with A. Glavieux and C. Berrou on the invention of turbo codes. The discovery subsequently led to many new research activities and implementation of the turbo codes and turbo-like codes; furthermore, it proved that the further signal to noise ratio (SNR) gain on communication channels toward the Shannon capacity is tangible. As a consequence of this innovation, he was awarded the prestigious Thailand’s Outstanding Technologist Award 2003 presented by the Foundation for Promotion of Science and Technology under the Patronage of His Majesty the King of Thailand.
A life of this inspirational person traced back many years. He was born in Songkhla, in the South of Thailand on November 9th, 1955. He earned the first degree in control engineering and the master’s degree in electrical engineering, both from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkabang (KMITL), Thailand, in 1984 and 1986 respectively. He later received Master’s Degree in Electronics and Ph.D. Degree in Electronics-Telecommunications from l’Université de Bretagne Occidentale (UBO), France, in 1989 and 1993, respectively. After finishing his PhD, he returned to the department of telecommunications engineering, faculty of engineering, KMITL where he became an Associate Professor and had been working for the rest of his life.

            On the 14th of May, a royal funeral rite in honor of him was held in his hometown province. We cannot realize the extent of sadness that his family and friends experienced with such an immense loss and how long it will linger. All we know is that the memories of the goodwill which we were once involved will never be erased from our memory. We will always remember Punya Thitimajshima, our dear friend and colleague.

                                                    Paramin Sangwongngam and Keattisak Sripimanwat
IEEE Communication Society, Thailand Chapter
and ECTI Associations, Thailand

P. Thitimajshima at the Department of Telecommunication Engineering, KMITL.

Among those recipients of the IEEE Information Theory Society Golden Jubilee Award at MIT in 1998, P. Thitimajshima is the fifth from right