Faculty Directory

Ephremides, Anthony

Ephremides, Anthony

Distinguished University Professor Emeritus
Cynthia Kim Eminent Professor of Information Technology
Electrical and Computer Engineering
The Institute for Systems Research
2333 A.V. Williams Bldg.
Website(s):

Anthony Ephremides holds the Cynthia Kim Eminent Professorship Chair of Information Technology. He holds a joint appointment with the Institute for Systems Research, of which he has been a founding member, and he is a also a member of and former Co-Director of the Maryland Hybrid Networks Center (HyNET), formerly known as the Center for Hybrid and Satellite Communication Networks (CHSCN).

He received his B.S. degree from the National Technical University of Athens (1967) and M.S. (1969) and Ph.D. (1971) degrees from Princeton University, all in Electrical Engineering. He has been at the University of Maryland since 1971 and currently holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department and in the Institute of Systems Research (ISR) of which he is a founding member. He is co-founder of the NASA Center for Commercial Development of Space on Hybrid and Satellite Communications Networks established in 1991 at Maryland as an off-shoot of the ISR. He served as Co-Director of that Center from 1991 to 1994.

He was a Visiting Professor in 1978 at the National Technical University in Athens, Greece and in 1979 at the EECS Department of the University of California, Berkeley and at INRIA, France. During 1985-1986 he was on leave at MIT and ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. He was the General Chairman of the 1986 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Athens, Greece and the 1991 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory in Budapest, Hungary. He also organized two workshops on Information theory in 1984 (Hot Springs, VA) and 1999 (Metsovo, Greece). He was the Technical Program Co-Chair of the IEEE INFOCOM in New York City in 1999 and the IEEE International Symposium on Information theory in Sorrento, Italy in 2000.

He has also been the Director of the Fairchild Scholars and Doctoral Fellows Program, an academic and research partnership program in Satellite Communications between Fairchild Industries and the University of Maryland. He won the IEEE Donald E. Fink Prize Paper Award (1992) and he was the first recipient of the Sigmobile Award of the ACM (Association of Computer Machinery) for contributions to wireless communications in 1997. He has been the President of the Information Theory Society of the IEEE (1987) and has served on its Board of Governors almost continuously from 1981 until the present. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the IEEE in 1989 and 1990.

Dr. Ephremides has authored or co-authored over 100 technical journal papers and 300 technical conference presentations. He has also contributed chapters to several books and edited numerous special issues of scientific journals. He has also won awards from the Maryland Office of Technology Liaison for the commercialization of products and ideas stemming from his research. He has served on the Editorial Boards of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Information theory, the Journal of Wireless Networks, and the International Journal of Satellite Communications.

He has been the Dissertation Supervisor of over twenty Ph.D. students who now hold prominent positions in academia, industry, and research labs. He is the founder and President of Pontos, Inc., a Maryland company that provides technical consulting services since 1980.

Dr. Ephremides' interests are in the areas of communication theory, communication systems and networks, queueing systems, signal processing, and satellite communications. NSF, NASA, ONR, ARL, NRL, NSA, and Industry have continuously supported his research since 1971.

He has served in many capacities in the IEEE and other organizations, from local organization posts to President of the Information Theory Society and member of the Institute Board of Directors, including Technical Program Chair and General Chair of Major Conferences.

Dr. Ephremides and his wife Jane are also known for their philanthropic contributions to the Clark School of Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. You can read about their work in this Engineering @ Maryland article from Fall 2022.

Honors and awards

    •    Distinguished University Professor 

    •    U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Alan Berman Research Publication Award (2007)

    •    IEEE Information Theory Society Aaron Wyner Distinguished Service Award (2006)

    •    Kirwan Research and Scholarship Prize, University of Maryland (2002)

    •    IEEE Millennium Medal (2000)

    •    ISR Outstanding Systems Engineering Faculty Award, University of Maryland (2000)

    •    ACM/SIGMOBILE Award for Outstanding Contributions to Research on Mobility of Systems, Users, Data, and Computing (1997)

    •    George Corcoran Award for Faculty, ECE Department (1978)

    •    IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer

    •    IEEE Fellow

    •    President of the IEEE Information Theory Society

    •    President of the Information Theory Society

    •    Member, IEEE Institute Board of Directors

IEEE Information Theory Society Matters

On this page Dr. Ephremides includes views, facts, articles, opinions, etc. pertaining to the IEEE Information Theory Society, which he has been a member of since 1968. The page includes his "Historian's Columns" for the society.

 

All aspects of communications systems (information theory, communication theory, multi-user systems, communication networks, satellite systems) with focus on energy efficiency and cross-layer approaches to design; systems theory, stochastic systems, optimization, signal processing, wireless communications, age of information, and other related, or unrelated, subjects.


UMD's 40th Annual Convocation Honors Engineering Staff, Faculty

The University of Maryland's 40th annual Convocation will honor 33 faculty and staff—including four from the A. James Clark School of Engineering—for their contributions to education, research, and the campus community.

Hu, Ulukus, DeVoe Recognized with UMD Distinguished Honors

Three Maryland Engineering professors—Liangbing Hu, Sennur Ulukus, and Don DeVoe—are among the 16 University of Maryland faculty members recognized this year as Distinguished University Professors and Distinguished Scholar-Teachers.

Congratulations May 2023 ISR graduates!

Here's a list of May graduates with ISR ties---at all degree levels.

Five Clark School authors part of new 'Age of Information' book

The text provides detailed information on the AoI network performance metric ushering in new opportunities for rethinking communication system design.

Sennur Ulukus Announced as New ECE Chair

Tenure as Chair began November 7, 2022

Sennur Ulukus receives 2020 IEEE ComSoc WICE Outstanding Achievement Award

Ulukus honored "for outstanding technical work and for achieving a high degree of visibility in the field of communications engineering, through research and service."

Ulukus, Modiano guest-edit IEEE journal special issue on Age of Information

The issue includes 21 articles that reflect the state of the art in Age of Information research.

Seven Students Win 2021 Dean's Research Awards

From fabricated human tissue to Wifi beamed from space, awards recognize cutting-edge research

Congratulations, May 2021 ISR graduates!

Institute for Systems Research faculty advised PhD, MS, BS and 12 MSSE students who graduated in May 2021.

David L. Elliott: An Appreciation

Dr. Elliott, a longtime ISR senior visiting faculty member, passed away on July 2, 2020

Bill Fagan named UMD Distinguished University Professor

Fagan is the sixth ISR faculty member to receive the honor.

Real-time remote reconstruction of signals for the Internet of Things

Ephremides, Wang and Chen find optimal sampling parameters that balance the tradeoff between the sampling distortion and the distortion caused by queueing, then induce the minimum average distortion.

Ephremides and colleagues consider Age of Information scheduling problem for interconnected sensors

The authors show the Whittle’s index policy is age-optimal for the general asymmetrical case in the burgeoning many-users regime of Internet of Things interconnected devices.

Ephremides honored with Festschrift in the journal Ad Hoc Networks

The special issue includes tributes and 12 papers written by former advisees. It was edited by three of them.

ECE Names 2018-2019 Distinguished Dissertation Fellows

Three electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. students were selected as ECE Distinguished Dissertation Fellows for 2018-19.

Ulukus Named ECE Associate Chair for Graduate Studies

Sennur Ulukus will serve as the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies from 2018-2021.

ECE Inducts Three New Distinguished Alumni

Ghanadan, Tan, and Viniotis inducted for leadership and meritorious contributions to engineering, humanitarian efforts, and the application of their engineering education to other disciplines.

Ephremides leads new NSF Age of Information project

The project will use the new concept of Age of Information to discover the relationships between information theory and signal processing, two of the main pillars of information science.

Ulukus named Anthony Ephremides Professor in Information Sciences and Systems

The chaired professorship provides annual support for a faculty member in the field of Information Sciences and Systems in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

Ephremides is PI for new ONR 'age of information' grant

The research will focus on the use of age for wireless network control.

John S. Baras inducted into Clark School Innovation Hall of Fame

Baras created algorithms and protocols by which Internet services can be delivered over satellite.

Ephremides speaks at Princeton EE commencement event

He earned his Ph.D. at Princeton in 1971.

Ephremides and colleagues issued U.S. Patent 9,318,232

The invention is a new apparatus, system, and technique for performing matrix spectral factorization.

Alumnus Tassiulas Wins 2016 IEEE Kobayashi Award

ECE alum recognized for scheduling and stability analysis of networks.

NSF Funds Novel Research to Create Scalable Wireless Networking, Averting Usage Crisis

Ephremides is co-PI on half-million dollar, three year grant

UMD Clark School Highlights Disaster Resilience at Mpact Week

Five-day event focused on role of engineers in disaster prevention, mitigation, and response.

Reelin’ in a Whopper—A True Fish Tale

Ephremides and Gomez take to the waters of Alaska for sportfishing.

Ephremides Wins IEEE MILCOM Lifetime Achievement Award

Professor Ephremides named 2014 IEEE MILCOM Technical Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient for his contributions to military communications.

Ephremides Receives 2012 AHSN Technical Recognition Award

Ephremides recognized by the IEEE Communication Society as a significant contributor to Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks field.

Ephremides Named Distinguished University Professor

ECE Professor receives highest academic honor conferred by the University of Maryland.

Ephremides Chairs ISIT 2011 Conference in St. Petersburg

Professor organizes premier conference of the prestigious IEEE Information Theory Society.

Jeongho Jeon Earns NIST-ARRA Fellowship

ECE graduate student is awarded a three-year fellowship.

Ephremides Engages in Distinguished Lecture Tour in Sweden

Ephremides gives lectures at four universities in Sweden, attends Green Communications workshop in Turkey.

Ephremides Gives Distinguished Lectures on Wireless Networking

Professor speaks in Australia, New Zealand as part of IEEE Communications Society program.

Ephremides Receives ONR Grant for Wireless Networks Research

Professor will receive support to research alternative measures of network ultimate capabilities.

Ephremides Receives NSF Grant for Cooperative Networking

Research goes beyond the physical layer in defining cooperative techniques for wireless networks.

ECE Faculty Honored at Inaugural Scholarship & Research Celebration

Twenty-seven ECE faculty members honored, representing 1/8 of researchers recognized university-wide.

Ephremides Gives Distinguished Lecture at Texas A&M

Professor speaks on the subject of wireless ad hoc networks.

Researchers Win MURI Award for Multi-Scale Networks

Team that includes Profs. Baras and Ephremides wins multi-million dollar grant to develop communication networks.

Ephremides Gives Two Invited Talks at Colorado State

Prof. Tony Ephremides delivered a distinguished lecture talk and special seminar on the subject of networking.

Ephremides Establishes Chair Professorship

ECE professor "gives back" to the Clark School.

Liu Named Fellow of the Academy of Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Professor selected to join University of Maryland teaching academy.

Ephremides Delivers Plenary Lecture at IEEE Communication Theory Workshop

Professor presents plenary lecture an unprecedented second consecutive year.

Ephremides, Nguyen, Wieselthier win NRL publication award

Co-authors are honored for paper extending existing models to better characterize the impact of the physical layer on random-access network performance.

ISR alums Leonard, Tassiulas named IEEE Fellows

Both earned Electrical Engineering Ph.D.s in the early 1990s.

Ephremides Delivers Distinguished Lectures on Wireless Networks

ECE/ISR professor tours Northeast as IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer.

Ephremides quoted in Computerworld article

Wireless expert offers opinions on the future of mobile technology

Ephremides wins information theory service award

IEEE recognizes professor for his service and leadership in the field of information theory.

ISR alum earns tenure at MIT

Eytan Modiano, a specialist in optical and ad hoc wireless networks, is an associate professor at MIT.

Post-doctoral Fellow Luo Joins Colorado State Faculty

Luo is moving on after four years as post-doctoral fellow at Maryland.

Ephremides To Deliver Keynote at IEEE Communication Theory Workshop

Ephremides is one of three featured plenary speakers at 35th annual workshop.

Ephremides, Ulukus, Tassiulas part of DoD MURI

Researchers to investigate dynamic, ad-hoc wireless networking

Ephremides speaks at LG Labs

Professor travels to Seoul to address leading manufacturer of cell phones

Ephremides appointed Cynthia Kim Professor

Dean Nariman Farvardin announces newly created information technology position.

Ephremides, Baras, La, Ulukus awarded wireless networks grant

Research to exploit inter-layer dependencies in network protocols for improved performance.

Baras, Berenstein, Ephremides, Liu and Papadopoulos win DoD URI

Research to focus on distributed immune systems for wireless networks information assurance

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

  • Fellow, 1984