Fred
Haber was one of the original Founders of the EMC Society in 1957.
He was born on July 1, 1921 in New York City and passed away this
year on September 20th, shortly after the 2007 IEEE International
Symposium on EMC in Hawaii. He was unable to come to Hawaii and
participate in the anniversary celebration due to health reasons.
He was a World War II veteran and he worked for Arma Corporation
in 1948 and then RCA until he began his association with the University
of Pennsylvania in 1951. During a leave from the University from
1962-1963, he was a consultant to General Precision, Inc. where
he developed a signal-processing scheme for gravity measurements.
In 1968, he was a visiting Professor at Pahlavi University in
Shiraz, Iran, where he introduced new courses in communication
and random processes at the senior and graduate level. During
the summers of 1972 and 1973, he was a consultant to the US Navy
Underwater Systems Center in EMC with contributions in modeling
and analyzing emission fields and in systems analysis of EMC.
Fred received his Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering
from Pennsylvania State University in 1948 and his Masters of
Science and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University
of Pennsylvania in 1953 and 1960, respectively. He was a Professor
at the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania
where he taught courses in probability, statistics, random processes,
communications theory, information theory, and coding. His work
at the University of Pennsylvania stretched from 1951 to 1987
when he retired and became a Professor Emeritus.
He had 23 Ph.D. students graduate under his advisorship and he
directed 70 Masters theses. In addition, he published over 60
technical papers in his areas of specialty. In 1974, his book
“Introduction to Communications and Information Theory”
was published.
He moved to Florida in his retirement and became associated with
Florida Atlantic University.
He was a Fellow of the IEEE for “contributions to electromagnetic
compatibility measurement and analysis and to communications theory
and systems.” He was a Registered Professional Engineer
in Pennsylvania, Chairman of the Philadelphia IEEE Section in
1974 and 1975, and an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions
on EMC from 1974 to 1976.
His research included the properties, modeling, and measurement
of radio frequency interference (RFI) and its effect upon communication
systems; signal design for multipath channels, analysis of spread
spectrum systems, and design of a space borne system for measuring
potentially interfering electromagnetic emissions from the earth.
He was married to Esther Gershman in 1948 and they had two children,
Jill and Carl.
Note: The author wishes to express his gratitude
to Ellen Sandel, the daughter of the late Len Thomas, another
well-known Founder of the EMC Society, who provided access to
her father’s extensive library of IEEE EMC Society material.
In particular, the IEEE Fellow application of Mr. Haber from this
library provided invaluable information for this article.
