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University of Rochester Researcher Recognized for Work on Electronic Imaging

Gaurav Sharma, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Rochester has been named a 2013 Fellow by the IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Sharma is being recognized for contributions to electronic imaging and media security.

"It is really an honor and pleasure to be recognized in this manner by my professional peers", said Sharma, "I think I can safely attribute a good measure of my success to advice I got from one of my Mathematics professors years ago, 'To do good mathematics you have to learn to be lazy, figure out how to map problems you wish to solve to those others have already solved instead of trying to solve them afresh'."

Early in his career Sharma developed a mathematical framework for evaluating the accuracy of color capture devices by relating them to human visual perception, work which led to both a well-cited technical paper and to commercial application in digital camera designs. Most recently he is working on developing a method for decoding the structure of noncoding RNAs that mirrors error correction decoding methods in communications – an approach that he and his collaborators refer to as Turbo decoding of RNA, borrowing the communications nomenclature.

He has published extensively in these fields, authoring over a 150 journal and conference papers. His work has had a lasting impact in both the academic community and in industry. He holds over 50 US patents, in addition to his academic publications.

Sharma received his doctorate in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, after doing his undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India.

He was a Technical Program Chair for the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing and is the Symposium Chair for the upcoming 2013 Electronic Imaging Symposium sponsored by the SPIE and the Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T) societies. He has previously held various positions in the local IEEE section and actively participates in judging for local student competitions including those for the First Lego league.

The IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. IEEE Fellow is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement. 298 individuals have been elevated to IEEE Fellow for 2013.

Through its 400,000 members in 160 countries, the IEEE is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics.