[4] Blahut was born in Orange, New Jersey and studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his B.S.
He carried out his doctoral studies at Cornell University, where he received his PhD in electrical engineering in 1972 under the supervision of information theorist Toby Berger.
He is also the Henryk Magnuski Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and is affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory.
[5] Blahut was elected a fellow of the IEEE in 1981 for the development of passive surveillance systems and for contributions to information theory and error control codes.
He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1990 for pioneering work in coherent emitter signal processing and for contributions to information theory and error control codes.