From Next-Gen AI to Surgical Robots: IEEE Celebrates the Technical Innovators Shaping the Future

World's leading technology and engineering community unveils 2027 Technical Field Awards, recognizing achievements in medical robotics, wireless networks, digital privacy, power electronics, computing technology, and more

PISCATAWAY, N.J., Sept. 22, 2026 -- Celebrating innovations ranging from life-saving surgical robots to next-generation Wi-Fi and electric vehicles, IEEE — the world's largest technical professional organization and public charity dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity — today announced the recipients of the 2027 IEEE Technical Field Awards.

These global honors recognize individual researchers, innovators, and collaborative teams whose technical achievements and leadership have made a lasting impact on technology, engineering, and society worldwide.

"The 2027 IEEE Technical Field Award recipients embody the relentless spirit of innovation and service that defines our global community," said Mary Ellen Randall, 2026 IEEE President and CEO. "Across microelectronics, artificial intelligence, medical robotics, wireless networks, energy conversion, and technical education, their groundbreaking accomplishments continue to push the boundaries of science and solve critical challenges for the benefit of humanity."

Each year, the IEEE Awards Board selects honorees through a rigorous peer-review process approved by the IEEE Board of Directors based on their extraordinary technical achievements, societal impact, and leadership in specialized engineering disciplines. The 2027 Technical Field Award recipients will be celebrated at a luncheon on 5 May 2027, as part of IEEE Awards Week.

2027 IEEE Technical Field Award Recipients

IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology, IEEE Circuits and Systems, and IEEE Signal Processing Societies

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Kullervo Hynynen — Sunnybrook Research Institute, University of Toronto

Hynynen is honored for pioneering contributions to the development, advancement, and clinical translation of therapeutic ultrasound.

IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award

Sponsored by the Brunetti Bequest

Co-Recipients: IEEE Member Edward Charles Gage, IEEE Fellow Ganping Ju, IEEE Fellow Jan-Ulrich Thiele — Seagate Technology

Gage, Ju, and Thiele are recognized for contributions to heat-assisted magnetic technology powering ultra-high-capacity hard disk drives and enabling greater storage of digital information.

IEEE Roger W. Brockett Control Systems Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Control Systems Society, and Friends and Family of Roger W. Brockett

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Arjan van der Schaft — Bernoulli Institute, University of Groningen (Retired)

Van der Schaft is recognized for contributions to robust and geometric approaches to nonlinear control, hybrid systems, and the control of physical systems.

IEEE Electromagnetics Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing, and IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Societies

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Zoya Popović — University of Colorado Boulder

Popović is recognized for contributions to microwave and millimeter-wave circuit designs, including power amplifiers, power-combining, and wireless power systems.

IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award

Sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL)

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Chin-Hui Lee — Georgia Institute of Technology

Lee is recognized for contributions to and leadership in technologies that enable automatic speech and speaker recognition, including innovations in adaptive learning and discriminative training.

IEEE Fourier Award for Signal Processing

Sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL)

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Nicholas Dimitrios Sidiropoulos — University of Virginia

Sidiropoulos receives the award for contributions to signal processing methods for analyzing complex data and identifying patterns in multiple dimensions.

IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Electron Devices Society

Recipient: IEEE Fellow John Robert Brews — University of Arizona (Retired)

Brews is recognized for foundational contributions to the physics and technology underlying MOS devices and circuits.

IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award

Sponsored by Sony Group Corporation

Recipient: IEEE Honorary Member Mike Lazaridis — Quantum Valley Investments

Lazaridis is honored for transformative contributions to mobile communication through visionary leadership that reshaped global consumer technology.

IEEE Internet Award

Sponsored by Google LLC

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Matthew Roughan — Adelaide University

Roughan is recognized for foundational contributions to analyzing Internet traffic and network structures, enabling better network management and understanding.

IEEE Richard Harold Kaufmann Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Industry Applications Society

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Akshay Kumar Rathore — National University of Singapore

Rathore is honored for developing innovative current-fed and multilevel power electronics converters.

IEEE Joseph F. Keithley Award in Instrumentation and Measurement

Sponsored by Tektronix Inc. and the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Pasquale Daponte — University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy

Daponte is recognized for contributions to the measurement and standardization of analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters.

IEEE Gustav Robert Kirchhoff Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Janusz Rajski — Siemens Digital Industries Software

Rajski is recognized for contributions to testing digital integrated circuits at the silicon level.

IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Graduate Teaching Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Memorial Fund

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Rama Chellappa — Johns Hopkins University

Chellappa is recognized for contributions to multi-disciplinary graduate education and mentoring of doctoral students in image processing, computer vision, and pattern recognition.

IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award

Sponsored by NEC Corporation

Recipient: IEEE Member Amin Vahdat — Google LLC

Vahdat is honored for developing network systems that scale data centers to support modern cloud computing and machine learning.

IEEE Arun N. Netravali Video Analytics, Technology, and Systems Award

Sponsored by Nokia Bell Labs

Co-Recipients: IEEE Life Member Jens-Rainer Ohm — RWTH Aachen University (Emeritus); IEEE Life Fellow Gary J. Sullivan — Dolby Laboratories; and IEEE Member Benjamin Bross — Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (HHI), Berlin, Germany

Ohm, Sullivan, and Bross are recognized for leadership in and contributions to developing the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) international standard, which improves the efficiency of digital video compression.

IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Power Electronics Society

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Paolo Mattavelli — University of Padova, Padua, Italy

Mattavelli receives the award for contributions to advanced modeling and control of power electronics converters.

IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits

Sponsored by the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Wanda Kay Gass — Texas Instruments (Retired)

Gass is recognized for pioneering contributions to programmable digital signal processing systems through innovations in circuit design, system architecture, and silicon compilers.

IEEE Frederik Philips Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Frederik Philips Award Fund

Recipient: IEEE Member Ann B. Kelleher — Intel Corporation (Retired)

Kelleher is honored for leading the historic advancement of CMOS process technology, culminating in the first node with backside power delivery.

IEEE Photonics Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Photonics Society

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Martin David Dawson — University of Strathclyde

Dawson is recognized for contributions to microstructured and wide-bandgap semiconductor optoelectronics and for leadership in technological innovation.

IEEE Robotics and Automation Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Russell H. Taylor — Johns Hopkins University

Taylor is distinguished for contributions to, leadership in, and the clinical translation of surgical and medical robotics.

IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Shun-ichi Amari — Teikyo University, Tokyo, Japan

Amari receives this award for foundational contributions to neural network theory and information geometry.

IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society

Recipient: Victor Malka — Weizmann Institute of Science

Malka is recognized for leadership in the development of laser-driven particle sources and advancing the technology toward practical applications.

IEEE Innovation in Societal Infrastructure Award

Sponsored by Hitachi, Ltd. and the IEEE Computer Society

Co-Recipients: IEEE Fellow Jaideep Vaidya — Rutgers University; IEEE Senior Member Lucila Ohno-Machado — Yale School of Medicine; and IEEE Senior Member Xiaoqian Jiang — UTHealth Houston

Vaidya, Ohno-Machado, and Jiang are recognized for leadership in designing and deploying privacy-preserving distributed clinical research infrastructures that enable secure, large-scale collaboration using health data.

IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Standards Association

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Mehmet Ulema — Manhattan University (Emeritus)

Ulema is recognized for leadership in the development and standardization of architecture, management, and protocols used in wireless communications and data networks.

IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award

Sponsored by Nokia Bell Labs

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Gerhard Fettweis — Technische Universität Dresden and Barkhausen Institut, Germany

Fettweis is recognized for contributions to physical-layer communication technology that have had an impact on the global wireless industry.

IEEE Nikola Tesla Award

Sponsored by Wolong Electric Group Co. Ltd., the IEEE Industry Applications Society, and the IEEE Power and Energy Society

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Pragasen Pillay — Concordia University

Pillay is recognized for contributions to the modeling, design, and application of electric machines in industrial, transportation, and renewable energy applications

IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award

Sponsored by the late Dr. Kiyo Tomiyasu, the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, and the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Yun Raymond Fu — Northeastern University

Fu is honored for contributions to computer vision and augmented human-machine interaction.

IEEE Transportation Technologies Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Industry Applications, IEEE Industrial Electronics, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems, IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology, IEEE Power Electronics, IEEE Power and Energy, and IEEE Vehicular Technology Societies

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Chunting Chris Mi — San Diego State University

Mi is recognized for contributions to advancing electric and hybrid electric vehicle technologies.

IEEE Rao R. Tummala Electronics Packaging Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society and Friends of Rao R. Tummala

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Ravi Mahajan — Intel Corporation

Mahajan is recognized for contributions to the development of technology that connects multiple chips within advanced electronic packages.

IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award

Sponsored by the IEEE Education Society

Recipient: IEEE Fellow Rhonda Rene Franklin — University of Minnesota

Franklin is recognized for leadership in advancing inclusive workforce development initiatives that create clear and accessible career pathways via undergraduate engineering education.

IEEE Lotfi A. Zadeh Award for Emerging Technologies

Sponsored by the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society

Recipient: IEEE Life Fellow Peng Shi — Adelaide University

Shi is recognized for contributions to artificial intelligence-based methods for robust control and filtering in complex systems.

For more information on IEEE Awards and the 2027 IEEE Technical Field Awards program, please visit https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/recipients/current-recipients.

Submit a nomination for an IEEE Technical Field Award by 15 January; to learn more, please visit https://ieee.secure-platform.com/a/page/ieeemedals_recognitions_techfieldawards/ieee_technical_field_awards 

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