Jacob Ziv

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Jacob Ziv (Hebrew: יעקב זיו‎; 1931-) is an Israeli computer scientist who, along with Abraham Lempel, developed the lossless LZ77 compression algorithm.

Ziv was born in Tiberias, Israel, on November 27, 1931. He received the B.Sc., Dip. Eng., and M.Sc. degrees, all in Electrical Engineering, from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, in 1954, and 1957, respectively, and the D.Sc. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, U.S.A., in 1962.

Ziv joined the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in 1970 and is Herman Gross Professor of Electrical Engineering and a Technion Distinguished Professor. His research interests include data-compression, information theory and statistical communication.

Ziv was Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering from 1974 to 1976 and Vice President for Academic Affairs from 1978 to 1982. Since 1987 Ziv has spent three sabbatical leaves at the Information Research Department of Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA.

From 1955 to 1959, he was a Senior Research Engineer in the Scientific Department Israel Ministry of Defense, and was assigned to the research and development of communication systems. From 1961 to 1962, while studying for his doctorate at M.I.T., he joined the Applied Science Division of Melpar, Inc., Watertown, MA, where he was a Senior Research Engineer doing research in communication theory. In 1962 he returned to the Scientific Department, Israel Ministry of Defense, as Head of the Communications Division and was also an Adjunct of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. From 1968 to 1970 he was a Member of the Technical Staff of Bell Laboratories, Inc. Ziv was the Chairman of the Israeli Universities Planning and Grants Committee from 1985 to 1991 (The Planning and Grant Committee is the interphase between the Government of Israel and the Universities; it prepares the budget, presents it to the government, and allocates it to the Universities; it is in charge of development and means and practices in the Universities). As of 1981, he is a member of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities and has served as its president (1995-2004).