Henry Pfister

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Jeffrey N. Vinik Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Henry Pfister Profile Photo
Henry Pfister Profile Photo

Research Themes

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Quantum Computing, Theory

Research Interests

Information theory, communications, probabilistic graphical models, machine learning, and deep neural networks

Bio

Henry D. Pfister received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2003 from the University of California, San Diego and is currently a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Duke University with a secondary appointment in Mathematics.  Prior to that, he was an associate professor at Texas A&M University (2006-2014), a post-doctoral fellow at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (2005-2006), and a senior engineer at Qualcomm Corporate R&D in San Diego (2003-2004).  His current research interests include information theory, error-correcting codes, quantum computing, and machine learning.

rn

He received the NSF Career Award in 2008 and a Texas A&M ECE Department Outstanding Professor Award in 2010.  He is a coauthor of the 2007 IEEE COMSOC best paper in Signal Processing and Coding for Data Storage and a coauthor of a 2016 Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC) best paper.  He has served the IEEE Information Theory Society as a member of the Board of Governors (2019-2022), an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2013-2016), and a Distinguished Lecturer (2015-2016).  He was also the General Chair of the 2016 North American School of Information Theory.

Education

  • Ph.D. University of California, San Diego, 2003

Positions

  • Jeffrey N. Vinik Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Professor of Mathematics
  • Member of the Duke Quantum Center

Awards, Honors, and Distinctions

  • Best Paper Award. Symposium on the Theory of Computation (STOC). 2016
  • 2015-2016 Distinguished Lecturer. IEEE Information Theory Society. 2015
  • NSF CAREER Award. National Science Foundation. 2008
  • 2007 Best Paper in Signal Processing and Coding for Data Storage. IEEE Communications Society . 2007

Courses Taught

  • MATH 590-02: Advanced Special Topics in Mathematics
  • EGR 393: Research Projects in Engineering
  • ECE 899: Special Readings in Electrical Engineering
  • ECE 891: Internship
  • ECE 590: Advanced Topics in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • ECE 586D: Vector Space Methods with Applications
  • ECE 586: Vector Space Methods with Applications
  • ECE 496: Special Topics in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • ECE 487: System Design for Machine Learning and Signal Processing
  • ECE 392: Projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering