Frank Kschischang, a faculty member in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering since 1991, has been appointed to the rank of University Professor. This is the University of Toronto’s highest and most distinguished academic rank, recognizing unusual scholarly achievement and preeminence in a particular field of knowledge. The number of such appointments is limited to 2% of the university’s tenured faculty. 

Kschischang works on problems related to the efficient and reliable digital transmission of information over communications channels with error-inducing noise. He is a world-leading scholar in the theory and practice of error-correcting codes, particularly as they apply to fiber-optic communications.

Kschischang is co-creator of the factor graph, a type of graphical model that is widely used in many areas of science and engineering, such as the decoding of capacity-approaching error-correcting codes, the localization and motion planning of robots, and a variety of machine-learning applications. He is also co-originator of the Koetter-Kschischang subspace codes, which provide a novel approach for reliable information transmission over data networks that employ random linear network coding. In addition, Kschischang co-invented ’staircase codes,’ an important family of error-correcting codes aimed at ultra-high-throughput transmission systems — most notably fiber-optic lines — which have been adopted into various international communication standards.

A leader in his professional community, Kschischang served as president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Information Theory Society in 2010 and Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory from 2014-2016. He received the Society’s Aaron D. Wyner Distinguished Service Award in 2016.

Kschischang is a fellow of the IEEE, the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Canada. His many research awards include the 2010 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award and the 2018 IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award. He received the Killam Research Fellowship in 2010 and the Canadian Award in Telecommunications Research in 2012. In 2023, he garnered the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, one of IEEE’s most prestigious honours, “for contributions to the theory and practice of error-correcting codes and optical communications.”

A popular and dedicated teacher, Kschischang led an initiative to revamp the ECE curriculum, resulting in the current flexible curriculum. He has earned several awards for his teaching, including seven departmental teaching awards, the Faculty Teaching Award and the Faculty’s Sustained Excellence in Teaching Award. He received the Faculty Award, for excellence in both teaching and research, from U of T in 2010.

“The impact of Professor Frank Kschischang’s exceptional contributions extend far beyond U of T and his research community,” says U of T Engineering Dean Christopher Yip.

“Anyone who uses the internet has benefited from his groundbreaking work on error-correcting codes for communications systems. On behalf of the faculty, I congratulate him on this well-deserved recognition.”