Robert Fano | |
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![]() Prof. Fano in his office at MIT in 2012 | |
Born | Roberto Mario Fano 11 November 1917 Turin, Italy |
Died | 13 July 2016 | (aged 98)
Citizenship | United States of America |
Alma mater | MIT |
Known for | Fano algorithm Fano metric Fano's inequality Shannon–Fano coding Pointwise mutual information Founder of Project MAC |
Relatives | Ugo Fano (brother) |
Awards | IEEE James H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal (1977) Shannon Award (1976) IEEE Fellow (1954) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | computer science, information theory |
Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Thesis | Theoretical Limitations on the Broadband Matching of Arbitrary Impedances (1947) |
Doctoral advisor | Ernst Guillemin |
Roberto Mario "Robert" Fano (11 November 1917 – 13 July 2016) was an Italian-American computer scientist and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became a student and working lab partner to Claude Shannon, whom he admired zealously and assisted in the early years of Information Theory.[1][2]