At a event attended by faculty and university leadership, Solomon Golomb was recognized for his most recent professional achievement: Golomb was one of 12 eminent researchers named by President Obama as having made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in science and engineering, thereby receiving the National Medal of Science on February 1, 2013.
Golomb’s name joins an impressive registry of National Medal of Science laureates, including Theodore von Kármán, Claude Shannon and USC alumnus Andrew Viterbi, namesake of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Viterbi, who received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1962, was mentored by Golomb, his colleague at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Golomb, one of the “Magnificent Seven” founders of the USC Communication Sciences Institute, has made profound contributions to mathematics and engineering, particularly in interplanetary communications. Video images from the Mars Rover Curiosity, which made headlines this past summer, owe a huge debt to Golomb’s mathematical coding schemes, enabling pristine imagery transmitted from the Mars Rovers all the way back to Earth.
Pictured in the photo (from left to right): USC President C. L. Max Nikias, Prof. Solomon Golomb, Dean Yannis Yortsos of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.