Richard E. Howard

Also known as Rich Howard

Howard is a research professor at Rutgers' WINLAB who helped start neural-network research at Bell Labs. In 1984, he and Larry Jackel founded the Adaptive Systems Research Department in Holmdel, New Jersey, and in 1989 he coauthored 'Backpropagation applied to handwritten zip code recognition' with Yann LeCun and others. From 1990 to 2005, he was Wireless Research Vice President at Lucent Bell Laboratories, and in 2005 he joined WINLAB and founded the start-up PnP Networks to apply AI techniques to make computers and networks simpler to use. In 2023 and 2024, he coauthored acoustic sensing papers on robot grasping and refrigerator frost detection. He is Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at WINLAB.

Now at: Rutgers University and Research Innovations, LLC
Badges: Founder
Bridge
Loyal

Timeline

By 1984

Microelectronics research at Bell Labs

By 1984, he is head of the Microelectronics Research Department at Bell Labs. He partners with Larry Jackel and Evelyn Hu to start a Microscience and Microfabrication group in Holmdel, New Jersey, whose techniques for making electronic devices at the nanometer scale set world records for the smallest active electronic devices.
1984–1987

Founding Adaptive Systems Research

In 1984, he and Larry Jackel found the Adaptive Systems Research Department at Bell Labs in Holmdel, with the goal of building large analogues of neural networks from highly connected silicon networks. The group's first major neural-network paper appears in 1987, written by Hans-Peter Graf, Jackel and Howard.
1988–1990

Handwritten zip code recognition

In 1988, he is one of nine authors, including Larry Jackel and John Denker, of a system that recognizes handwritten digits from more than 10,000 raw bitmaps of zip codes on US Postal Service envelopes. In 1989, he coauthors 'Backpropagation applied to handwritten zip code recognition' in Neural Computation with Yann LeCun, Jackel and others, and in 1990 he coauthors 'Handwritten zip code recognition with multilayer networks.'
1990–2005

Wireless research at Lucent

From 1990 to 2005, he serves as Wireless Research Vice President at Lucent Bell Laboratories, directing research on wireless technology across materials and components. In 2000, he is one of six authors of 'Technology evolution for mobile and personal communications' in the Bell Labs Technical Journal.
2005–2012

Joining Rutgers WINLAB

In 2005, he joins WINLAB at Rutgers University as a researcher and founds PnP Networks, a start-up focused on applying artificial intelligence techniques to make computers and computer networks simpler to use. In 2012, he becomes Research Professor at WINLAB.
2023–2024

SonicFinger and frost sensing

In 2023, he coauthors SonicFinger with Larry Jackel, Volkan Isler and others at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation; its acoustic field around a robot finger senses objects before contact, with a pre-touch true positive rate of 92.4%. In 2024, he coauthors a refrigerator frost detector based on ultrasonic resonance of piezoelectric sensors, which reaches 99.7% accuracy in a Samsung refrigerator.
As of October 2026

Research professor at WINLAB

He is Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at WINLAB, Rutgers University. He also serves as principal of Research Innovations, LLC.