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.

Read more...