In memory of Ralf Koetter

“Dear Colleagues,

It is with  profound sadness that I announce that Ralf Koetter passed away yesterday.

Ralf was a great researcher, known worldwide for his brilliant achievements in Information and Communications Theory. But this does not capture fully Ralf’s personality. He has been one of the sweetest persons I have ever met, and I will never forget his smile, which was shining even in the last painful months.

On behalf of Marco and the executive board of NEWCOM++, I kindly invite the whole N++ community to join me in a virtual minute of silence at 18.00 today (Feb, 2^nd) in memory of  Ralf.

Sincerely…

Sergio”

A recent obituary for Ralf was posted on the website of the University of Illinois, where he spent almost a decade.

Ralf Koetter’s funeral Mass will be Thursday, Feb. 5th, at 11am at the St. Theresia Kirche at the corner of Dom-Pedro-Str. and Landshuter Allee. His burial will be in Kronberg, the town where he grew up, on Friday, Feb. 6th at 10am.

Remembrances can be left on the following Web page: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ralfkoetter

Ralf Koetter received a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University Darmstadt, Germany in 1990 and a Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Linkoeping University, Sweden. From 1996 to 1997, he was a visiting scientist at the IBM Almaden Research Laboratory in San Jose, California. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign and a visiting scientist at CNRS in Sophia Antipolis, France from 1997 to 1998. In the years 1999-2006 he was member of the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. In 2006 he joined the faculty of the TU Muenchen as the head of the Institute for Communications Engineering.

Dr. Koetter's research interest include coding and information theory and their application to communication systems.

In the years 1999-2001, he served as associate editor for coding theory & techniques for the IEEE Transactions on Communications. In 2003, he concluded a term as associate editor for coding theory of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. He received an IBM Invention Achievement Award in 1997, an NSF CAREER Award in 2000, an IBM Partnership Award in 2001 and a 2006 XEROX award for faculty research. He is co-recipient of the 2004 Paper Award of the Information Theory Society. Since 2003 he has been a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society.

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