C. Sidney Burrus

An IEEE Life Fellow, Charles Sidney Burrus is Maxfield and Oshman Professor Emeritus of Engineering, and Senior Strategist for Connexions ®, a web-based open-source textbook initiative for sharing signal processing education materials. Dr. Burrus has been conducting research in digital signal processing (DSP) for more than 30 years at Rice. He joined the faculty of Rice University in 1965 after receiving the Ph.D. degree from Stanford University. From 1972 to 1978 Dr. Burrus was master of Lovett College. He was chairman of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1984 to 1992 and director of the Computer and Information Technology Institute (CITI) from 1992 to 1998.  From 1998 to 2005 he was dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering. Under his leadership, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering played a significant founding role in securing Texas Instruments’ leadership position in DSP. A multi-million dollar gift awarded in 1996 recognized Rice University’s “leadership in DSP solutions.”  In1999, TI established a Leadership University Program to recognize the continuing DSP leadership and contributions of three schools: William Marsh Rice University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Georgia Institute of Technology. Each school received $1 million over a three-year period, with which Rice established the TI Elite DSP teaching lab that was dedicated in 2000.

Recognizing the promise of digital signal processing (DSP) long before most others, Dr. Burrus helped move DSP from an obscure discipline to a key component of the information age by making important contributions to digital filtering and Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs). Known for the ability to extend and explain difficult concepts in simple language, Dr. Burrus generalized the Cooley-Tukey algorithm (one of the most common FFTs) as well as prime factor algorithms (the preferred method for implementing FFTs of lengths other than powers of two).

His original work on methods to automatically generate code have been the basis for subsequent developments in Fourier transform computation, and recently his work on using FFTs to factor very high-order polynomials has been recognized as an alternative for phase unwrapping and determining the complex cepstrum of long data sequences. Dr. Burrus’ contributions to theory and design of digital filters include introducing the first direct design method for infinite impulse response digital filters, which is still in use today, and improving upon the Parks-McClellan algorithm for finite impulse filter design by developing a filter able to handle the very long lengths required by modern applications.

Genuinely devoted to advancing engineering education, Dr. Burrus helped build Rice University’s reputation as a leading institution in digital signal processing, receiving Rice’s highest teaching award five times. Dr. Burrus has been a Guest Professor at the University of Erlangen in Germany and a Visiting Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT.  During his career, Dr. Burrus has received an IEEE S-ASSP Senior Award, a Senior Alexander von Humboldt Award, and a Senior Fulbright Fellowship, was elected Fellow of the IEEE, the IEEE S-ASSP Technical Achievement Award, was a Distinguished Lecturer for the Signal Processing Society and for the Circuits and Systems Society, served on the IEEE Signal Processing Society ADCOM, and coauthored numerous books and papers on digital signal processing. He was awarded the IEEE S-SP Society Award in 1994, the Millennium Medal in 2000, the SPIE Wavelet Pioneer Award in 2006, and received the IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal in 2009.