CARL W HELSTROM JR

Carl W. Helstrom, Jr., age 88, of La Jolla, California, passed away on October 15, 2013.

He was born in Easton, PA, on February 22, 1925. He received the B.S degree in engineering physics from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, in 1947 and the Ph.D. degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1951. In 1956, he married Barbro Dahlbom.

From 1944 to 1946 he was a radio technician in the U.S. Navy. From 1951 to 1966 he worked in applied mathematics at the Westinghouse Research Laboratories, Pittsburgh, PA. On leave during the 1963-1964 academic year, he lectured in the Department of Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles. He joined the University of California, San Diego in 1966, where he was Professor, then Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering. From 1971 to 1973 and 1974 to 1977 he was Chairman of his Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department, and during the 1973-1974 and 1986-1987 academic years he was Professeur Associé at the Université de Paris-Sud. From 1967 to 1971 Dr. Helstrom served as Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.

When not working, he enjoyed reading books from his extensive library.

He is survived by his wife, Barbro, his sons Lars and Stefan, and his sister Ann.