Bio


Abbas El Gamal is the Hitachi America Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He received his B.Sc. Honors degree from Cairo University in 1972, and his M.S. in Statistics and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering both from Stanford University in 1977 and 1978, respectively. From 1978 to 1980, he was an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at USC. From 2003 to 2012, he was the Director of the Information Systems Laboratory at Stanford University. From 2012 to 2017 he was Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. His research contributions have been in network information theory, FPGAs, and digital imaging devices and systems. He has authored or coauthored over 230 papers and holds 35 patents in these areas. He is coauthor of the book Network Information Theory (Cambridge Press 2011). He has received several honors and awards for his research contributions, including the 2016 Richard W. Hamming Medal, the 2012 Claude E. Shannon Award, and the 2004 INFOCOM Paper Award. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the IEEE. He has co-founded and served on the board of directors and advisory boards of several semiconductor and biotechnology startup companies.

Honors & Awards


  • Richard W. Hamming Medal, IEEE (2016)
  • Claude E. Shannon Award, IEEE Information Theory Society (2012)
  • Best paper Award, Infocom Conference (2004)
  • Fellow, IEEE (Present)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations


  • Sr. Past President, IT Society (2016 - 2017)
  • Jr. Past President, IT Society (2015 - 2015)
  • President, IT Society (2014 - 2014)
  • Member, National Academy of Engineering (2013 - Present)

Professional Education


  • PhD, Stanford University (1978)

Stanford Advisees