PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jacob Ziv

Also known as J. Ziv, יעקב זיו

Jacob Ziv was an Israeli information theorist at the Technion whose universal compression algorithms, written with Abraham Lempel, compress data with no prior knowledge of its source. Born in Tiberias in 1931, he studied electrical engineering at the Technion, earned a doctorate at MIT in 1962, and worked on communication systems for the Israel Ministry of Defense and at Bell Laboratories before joining the Technion faculty in 1970. The LZ77 and LZ78 algorithms of 1977 and 1978 became the basis of ZIP, GIF and PNG files. His honours included the 1993 Israel Prize, the 1997 Shannon Award of the IEEE Information Theory Society and the 2021 IEEE Medal of Honor. He died in 2023 at age 91.

Born
1931
Died
2023
Badges

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1954–1962

    Technion and MIT degrees

    Born in Tiberias in 1931, he earns a B.Sc. in 1954 and an M.Sc. in 1957 in electrical engineering at the Technion. He receives a D.Sc. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962.

  2. 1955–1970

    Defense research and Bell Labs

    From 1955 to 1959, he is a senior research engineer in the Scientific Department of the Israel Ministry of Defense, working on communication systems. He returns there in 1962 as head of the Communications Division, then joins the technical staff of Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, from 1968 to 1970.

  3. 1970–1982

    Professor and dean at the Technion

    Ziv joins the Technion in 1970 as Herman Gross Professor of Electrical Engineering. He serves as dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering from 1974 to 1976 and as vice president for academic affairs from 1978 to 1982.

  4. 1977–1978

    The Lempel–Ziv algorithms

    With Abraham Lempel, he publishes the LZ77 compression algorithm in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory in May 1977 and follows it with LZ78 in 1978. These universal methods compress data with no prior knowledge of its source, and they become the basis of ZIP, GIF and PNG files.

  5. 1982–1991

    Academy member and grants chair

    In 1982, he is elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and named a Technion Distinguished Professor. He chairs the Israeli Universities Planning and Grants Committee from 1985 to 1991 and becomes a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1988.

  6. 1993–1997

    Israel Prize and Shannon Award

    He receives the Israel Prize in exact sciences in 1993, the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal and the Marconi Prize in 1995, and the Claude E. Shannon Award from the IEEE Information Theory Society in 1997. In 1997, he also establishes the Israeli National Infrastructure Forum for Research and Development.

  7. 2003–2017

    BBVA and EMET prizes

    He is elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2003 and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2004. The IEEE names the Lempel–Ziv algorithms a historic milestone in electrical and electronic engineering in 2004. He wins a BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2008 and the EMET Prize in the exact sciences category in 2017.

  8. 2021–2023

    The IEEE Medal of Honor

    He receives the 2021 IEEE Medal of Honor, the highest recognition from IEEE, for fundamental contributions to information theory and data compression technology. Ziv dies in March 2023 at age 91.

Career

  1. 1997Israeli National Infrastructure Forum for Research and DevelopmentFounder
  2. 1985–1991Israeli Universities Planning and Grants CommitteeChair
  3. 1970–1982TechnionHerman Gross Professor of Electrical Engineering, Dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering
  4. 1968–1970Bell LabsTechnical staff member
  5. 1955–1968Israel Ministry of DefenseSenior research engineer, Head of the Communications Division

Education

  1. 1962Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyD.Sc.
  2. 1957TechnionM.Sc. in electrical engineering
  3. 1954TechnionB.Sc. in electrical engineering

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Jacob Ziv. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. Of 216 AI researchers who entered public life, 83 held advisory seats and 58 took public rolesIncludes Jacob Ziv. Of 216 AI researchers who entered public life, 83 held advisory seats and 58 took public roles. Another 97 people moved from public careers into AI organizations or research, with 62% of dated records starting from 2020 on.
  3. 23% of people shaping AI who left a university for a company later returned to a universityIncludes AT&T. We estimate that 468 of the 2,011 people shaping AI who left a university for a company (23%) later returned to a university after a median of 5 years, and 163 of 829 (20%) made the reverse round trip.
  4. Universities keep AI researchers for a median of 6 years, compared with 2 years at frontier labsIncludes AT&T. Across 15,811 dated work stays (6,529 people), median role tenure runs from 6 years at universities to 2 years at frontier labs. We compare all five organization types, starting decades from the 1970s to the 2020s, and the organizations that keep people longest.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Jacob Ziv yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Jacob Ziv - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Jacob Ziv - Engineering and Technology History Wiki ethw.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. IEEE Medal of Honor Goes to Data Compression Pioneer Jacob Ziv - IEEE Spectrum spectrum.ieee.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Commemorating Jacob Ziv i-programmer.info. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Milestones:Lempel-Ziv Data Compression Algorithm, 1977 - Engineering and Technology History Wiki ethw.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. LZ77 and LZ78 - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 21 October 2026.