Electrical Engineering Professor Nasser Kehtarnavaz has been elected to the rank of fellow in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

This honor is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors to selected senior members with outstanding accomplishments in a related field.

IEEE is the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology, with nearly 400,000 members in 160 countries. The fellow grade is granted to Kehtarnavaz for “contributions to real-time and biomedical image processing.”

“It was wonderful to hear that my work has been recognized by such a prestigious organization. This is certainly a great honor.”

Dr. Nasser Kehtarnavaz

Kehtarnavaz has played a leading role in shaping the field of real-time image processing. He is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Real-Time Image Processing, and directs a research program sponsored by Texas Instruments focused on developing advanced real-time image processing features for future generations of smartphones and digital cameras.

Kehtarnavaz’s research areas include real-time signal and image processing, biomedical image analysis, and pattern recognition. He has written or co-authored eight books and more than 260 articles in these areas.

Since joining UT Dallas in 2002, he has been principal investigator on 23 funded projects and a co-principal investigator of four National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation projects.

In addition to his research contributions, Kehtarnavaz has been active in efforts to advance teaching effectiveness by introducing materials in his books for students to more easily implement theoretical concepts in signal-processing laboratory courses.

Kehtarnavaz is also a fellow of the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers. He is a licensed professional engineer in Texas and was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society in 2009 and 2010.

Among his various service activities at UT Dallas, he has worked recently to increase graduate student enrollment in the Department of Electrical Engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.  He has also served as the chair of the Dallas Chapter of the IEEE Signal Processing Society since 2004, organizing and offering more than 70 IEEE seminars at UT Dallas for area engineers and students.