Robert J. McEliece (May 21, 1942 – May 8, 2019)[1] was the Allen E. Puckett Professor and a professor of electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) best known for his work in error-correcting coding and information theory.
He was a life fellow of the IEEE and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1998.
Born in Washington, D.C.,[2] and raised in Baltimore, McEliece was educated at Caltech (B.S.
He began working at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an undergraduate, and continued there until 1978.
From 1978 until his retirement, McEliece consulted with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on error-correcting coding schemes.