Faculty Profiles

Professor Siegel is interested in determining the fundamental limits on the capacity and reliability of digital data storage and communication systems, as well as in developing coding, modulation, and detection algorithms that can approach those limits. He has considerable experience in the theory and implementation of error-correction coding, modulation coding, and signal processing techniques.  His research is applicable to high-density magnetic recording devices; solid-state, non-volatile memories; distributed data storage networks; optical fiber transmission; and wireless communication systems.  At UCSD, Professor Siegel is affiliated with the Information Theory and Applications Center, the Center for Wireless Communications, and the Center for Magnetic Recording Research. He is the co-organizer of the annual UCSD Non-volatile Memories Workshop.

Capsule Bio:

Paul H. Siegel received his Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT in 1979 and then spent a year as a Chaim Weizmann Postdoctoral Fellow at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University. From 1980 to 1995, he was with the IBM Research Division in San Jose, California, where he was named a Master Inventor in 1994.  He joined the faculty at the Jacobs School of Engineering in 1995, where he is currently a Distinguished Professor in the ECE Department.  He holds an endowed chair at the Center for Magnetic Recording Research, where he served as Director from 2000 to 2011. Prof. Siegel received the 2008 Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award for undergraduate teaching in the Jacobs School and the 2010 Best Teacher Award for graduate teaching in the ECE Department in 2011.  

            Prof. Siegel was Co-Guest Editor of the May 1991 Special Issue on “Coding for Storage Devices” of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. He served the same Transactions as Associate Editor for Coding Techniques from 1992 to 1995, and as Editor-in-Chief from July 2001 to July 2004. He was also Co-Guest Editor of the May/September 2001 two-part issue on “The Turbo Principle: From Theory to Practice” of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. Prof. Siegel has also served several terms on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society.

            Prof. Siegel was co-recipient, with R. Karabed, of the 1992 IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award and shared the 1993 IEEE Communications Society Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award with B.H. Marcus and J.K. Wolf. With J.B. Soriaga and H.D. Pfister, he received the 2007 Best Paper Award in Signal Processing and Coding for Data Storage from the Data Storage Technical Committee of the IEEE Communications Society.

            In 1997, Prof. Siegel was named an IEEE Fellow “for contributions to signal processing and coding for storage systems.” In 2008, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering "for the invention and development of advanced coding techniques for digital recording systems.”