Mitra's Biography
Sanjit K. Mitra is a Professor Emeritus of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of
California, Santa Barbara, California and Professor Emeritus, Ming Hsieh Department of
Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He has held short term
visiting appointments at universities in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Croatia, Finland, Germany,
India, Japan, Norway, Singapore, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Dr. Mitra has published 246
journal papers and 465 conference papers in the areas of analog and digital signal processing,
and image processing. He has authored and co-authored twelve books, and holds six patents.
He has presented 31 keynote and/or plenary lectures at conferences held in the United States
and 17 countries abroad. He has also presented over 580 invited lectures in 43 countries. He
has served as an external examiner of 17 doctoral dissertations from universities in 5 countries.
He has served as an Advisor to the Department of Radio Engineering, Peking University,
Beijing, People's Republic of China, August 1983 (under a World Bank Development Program).
Dr. Mitra has served IEEE in various capacities including service as the President of the IEEE
Circuits & Systems Society in 1986.
Awards: Dr. Mitra is the recipient of the 1973 F.E. Terman Award and the 1985 AT&T
Foundation Award of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE); the 1989
Education Award, and the 2000 Mac Van Valkenburg Society Award of the IEEE Circuits &
Systems Society; the Distinguished Senior U.S. Scientist Award from the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation of Germany in 1989; the 1996 Technical Achievement Award, the 2001
Society Award and the 2006 Education Award of the IEEE Signal Processing Society; the IEEE
Millennium Medal in 2000 (presented to 3,000 IEEE members), the McGraw-Hill/Jacob Millman
Award of the IEEE Education Society in 2001; the 2002 Technical Achievement Award and the
2009 Athanasios Papoulis Award of the European Association for Signal Processing, the 2005
Technology Achievement Award of the International Society for Optical Engineers (SPIE); the
University Medal of the Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, Slovakia in 2005; the 2006 IEEE
James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal; and the 2013 IEEE Gustav Robert Kirchhoff Award. He
is the co-recipient of the 2000 Blumlein-Browne-Willans Premium of the Institution of Electrical
Engineers (London) and co-recipient of the 2001 IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems for
Video Technology Best Paper Award. He was interviewed in 1998 by the IEEE for their oral
history project (https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Sanjit_Mitra). Dr. Mitra was honored as a pioneer in
signal processing at the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal
Processing. He was also honored as a pioneer in circuits, systems, and signal processing at the
2017 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits & Systems, where two special sessions on “50
Years of Circuits, Systems, & Signals in Honor of Prof. Sanjit K. Mitra” were presented in the
technical program by speakers from India, Italy, Singapore and the United States
(https://signalprocessingsociety.org/newsletter/2017/07/member-news-prof-sanjit-k-mitra). Dr.
Mitra has been awarded Honorary Doctorate degrees from the Tampere University of
Technology, Finland, the Technical University of Bucharest, Romania, and the Technical
University of Iasi, Romania. Dr. Mitra is a Fellow of the IEEE, American Association for
Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
(SPIE), US National Academy of Inventors and Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association
(AAIA). He received the IEEE Educational Activities Board Vice President’s Award in November
2017 and cited “for outstanding contributions in analog and digital signal processing and image
processing, and authoring pioneering textbooks that inspire and educate students worldwide,”
(https://engineering.ucsb.edu/news/sanjit-mitra-50-years-signaling-future). Dr. Mitra was
interviewed by two Associate Editors of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, December
2021 (https://typeset.io/pdf/an-interview-with-professor-sanjit-k-mitra-interview-1gdour7t.pdf).
February 2023 issue of the Inside Signal Processing Newsletter includes an interview by Dr.
Abhishek Appaji (https://signalprocessingsociety.org/newsletter/2023/02/member-highlight-dr-
sanjit-k-mitra-distinguished-professor-emeritus-electrical).
Academy Members: He is an Academician of the Academy of Finland (appointed by the
President of Finland), a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Norwegian
Academy of Technological Sciences, Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Croatian
Academy of Sciences and Arts, Academy of Engineering of Mexico, Croatian Academy of
Engineering, Academia Nacionale de Engenharia (Brazilian Academy of Engineering),
Engineering Academy of Japan, Academia Europaea, European Academy of Sciences and Arts,
Turkish Academy of Sciences (Bilim Academisia), Indian National Academy of Engineering
(INAE) and the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI), and the Bavarian Academy of
Sciences and Humanities (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften).