Imre Csiszár

Who is Imre Csiszár?

Imre Csiszár is a Hungarian mathematician with contributions to information theory and probability theory. In 1996 he won the Claude E. Shannon Award, the highest annual award given in the field of information theory.

He was born February 7, 1938, in Miskolc, Hungary. He became interested in mathematics in middle school. He was inspired by his father who was a forest engineer and was among the first to use mathematical techniques in his area. He studied mathematics at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and received his Diploma in 1961. He got his PhD in 1967 and the scientific degree Doctor of Mathematical Science in 1977.

Later, he was influenced by Alfréd Rényi, who was very active in the area of probability theory. In 1990 he was elected Corresponding Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and in 1995 he became Full Member. Professor Csiszar has been with the Mathematical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 1961. He has been Head of the Information Theory Group there since 1968, and presently he is Head of the Stochastics Department. He is also Professor of Mathematics at the L. Eotvos University, Budapest.