Rico Malvar

Henrique "Rico" S. Malvar (born 1957)[1] is a distinguished Brazilian engineer and a signal processing researcher at Microsoft Research's largest laboratory in Redmond, Washington, United States.[2] He was the managing director of the lab following the departure of long-time Managing Director Dan Ling in 2007, when he oversaw about 350 researchers.[3][4] He was a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft for over 15 years. He retired from Microsoft in January 2023, and later received the title of Microsoft Emeritus Researcher.

Henrique S. Malvar
Rico Malvar at an IEEE Conference in 2011
Born1957
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Alma materMIT (PhD)
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (MS)
University of Brasilia
Known forLapped transform, Windows Media Audio codec, JPEG XR image codec
AwardsMember of the US National Academy of Engineering - 2012, Fellow of the IEEE - 1997
Scientific career
FieldsSignal processing, Data compression, Harmonic analysis
InstitutionsMicrosoft Research, PictureTel
Doctoral advisorDavid H. Staelin

Rico is also an Affiliate Professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Washington.

History and contributions

Malvar earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Brasília and his master's degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1986, where his thesis was on "Optimal pre- and post-filtering in noisy sampled-data systems,"[5] and served as a visiting professor at MIT for the next year. From 1979 to 1993, Malvar was a faculty member at the University of Brasília, where he founded and headed the Digital Signal Processing Research Group[6][7] (in Portuguese, Grupo de Processamento Digital de Sinais or GPDS[8]).

Malvar is known for the development of the lapped transform, Malvar wavelets, and new algorithms for entropy coding and multimedia signal processing and compression, such as audio and image codecs.

In industry, Malvar served as vice president of Research and Advanced Technology at PictureTel from 1985 to 1987[1] (which has since been acquired by Polycom). In Fall 1997, he joined Microsoft Research where he co-founded and managed the Signal Processing research group, now the Communication and Collaboration Systems and Knowledge Tools groups. He was a Redmond lab director from 2004 to 2007 before stepping up to become managing director.[6] In 2010 he took on a new position of Chief Scientist, working on cross-labs strategic projects. Currently, as a Distinguished Engineer, he leads a team that develops new user experiences with new devices and new input/output interaction modes, with special attention to inclusiveness and empowering people with disabilities.

At Microsoft, Malvar contributed to the development of audio coding and digital rights management for the Windows Media Audio, Windows Media Video, and to image compression technologies, such as HD Photo / JPEG XR formats and the RemoteFX bitmap compression, as well as to a variety of tools for signal analysis and synthesis.[6][9]

As of February 2022, he has published over 180 technical articles and has authored or co-authored over 120 issued patents.[2]

Editorial and committee positions

Malvar has served as an editor or committee member for the following journals, conferences, and organizations:[6]

Titles and awards

Malvar holds the following prestigious titles and awards. A sample:[9]

  • 1981: The Young Scientist Award from the Marconi International Fellowship Foundation
  • 1992: Best Paper Award in Image Processing from the IEEE Signal Processing Society[6]
  • 1997: Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for contributions to the theory and practice of lapped transforms, fast multirate filterbanks, and signal coding.[10]
  • 2002: Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society
  • 2004: Wavelet Pioneer Award from SPIE
  • 2006: Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft.
  • 2012: Member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE).
  • 2014: 20th Century Landmark Award, IEEE Seattle Section.
  • 2020: Amar G. Bose Industrial Leader Award, IEEE Signal Processing Society.
  • 2022: Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Brasilia.

References
  1. "Henrique S. Malvar Biographical Summary". Collaboration Working Group. Defense Technical Information Center. 1996. Archived from the original on June 17, 1997. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  2. "Henrique "Rico" Malvar". Microsoft Research user pages. Microsoft. August 2008. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  3. "Director of Microsoft Research's Redmond lab to retire". seattlepi.com. nwsource. 5 March 2007. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  4. "The Power Inside". Redmond Magazine. October 2005. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  5. H. S. Malvar. Optimal pre- and post-filtering in noisy sampled-data systems. Ph.D. thesis. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass, USA. September 1986.
  6. "Henrique Malvar". Microsoft Research: Press Resources. Microsoft. 2007. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  7. "Histórico do Grupo de Processamento Digital de Sinais - GPDS". Universidade de Brasília. 20 February 2006. Archived from the original on 28 June 2008. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  8. "GPDS - Grupo de Processamento Digital de Sinais". Universidade de Brasília. Archived from the original on November 12, 2008. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  9. "Rico Malvar". PressPass - Information for Journalists. Microsoft. 14 September 2007. Retrieved 5 December 2008.
  10. "IEEE Fellows 1997 | IEEE Communications Society".
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