Elwyn Berlekamp

Elwyn Ralph Berlekamp (born September 6, 1940) is an American mathematician. He is a professor emeritus of mathematics and EECS at the University of California, Berkeley. Berlekamp is known for his work in coding theory and combinatorial game theory.

Biography

Berlekamp was born in Dover, Ohio. While an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he was a Putnam Fellow in 1961. He completed his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering in 1962. Continuing his studies at MIT, he finished his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1964; his advisors were Robert G. Gallager, Peter Elias, Claude Shannon, and John Wozencraft. Berlekamp taught electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley from 1964 until 1966, when he became a mathematics researcher at Bell Labs. In 1971, Berlekamp returned to Berkeley as Professor of Mathematics and EECS, where he served as the advisor for over twenty doctoral students. He is now Professor Emeritus.