Ephremides, Anthony
Cynthia Kim Eminent Professor of Information Technology
The Institute for Systems Research
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.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, 2022Dean's Circle Spotlight: A Blueprint for Human-Oriented Innovation
Anthony Ephremides, the founder of the field of ad-hoc wireless networks, is one of Maryland Engineering's most philanthropic faculty members.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 researchEngineering Graduate Students Win UMD 3MT Competition
Three Clark School graduate students were among the university's 2020 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) winners.ECE Mourns the Passing of Esteemed Professor Emeritus Nicholas DeClaris
Professor DeClaris joined the UMD faculty in 1967 and served as Head of the Electrical Engineering Department. After stepping down as head, he continued to teach until his retirement in 2011.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- Fellow, 1984