Richard E. Blahut is Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, where he is also a professor. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the recipient of many awards including the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal (1998), the Tau Beta Pi Daniel C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award, and the IEEE Millennium Medal. He was named Fellow of the IBM Corporation in 1980, where he worked for over 30 years, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1990.