![[Viterbi in 1963]](http://viterbi.usc.edu/assets/001/10776.jpg)
Andrea Viterbi was born March 9, 1935 in Bergamo, Italy, near Milan. Because of the government’s increasingly harsh policies against Jews, in 1939 his parents fled with him to the United States. Once in America, they changed his name to Andrew James Viterbi.
Viterbi spent most of his school years in Boston, graduating 4th in his class from Boston Latin High School in 1952. He then enrolled in a five-year, dual-degree coop program in electrical engineering at MIT, receiving both an S.B.and S.M. degree in 1957.
From MIT, he went to work at the Communications Research Section of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. While there, he studied for his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Southern California, graduating in 1962.
In 1963 he joined the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where he worked for the next 10 years. His best known contribution was the 1967 publication of a maximum-likelihood optimal algorithm for convolutional coding, which became known as “Viterbi decoding.” In 1966, he also authored the first of three textbooks. In 1973, he took an industrial leave of absence from UCLA and resigned two years later.
In 1968, Viterbi co-founded Linkabit Corporation. Its offices were originally near UCLA, but moved to San Diego in 1971 to be closer to president and co-founder Irwin Jacobs. Viterbi became excutive vice president of Linkabit in 1973. After it was acquired by M/A-COM in 1980, he served as president from 1982 until his resignation in 1985.
In 1985, Viterbi, Jacobs and five others co-founded Qualcomm Corporation. Viterbi served as chief technical officer until 1996, and vice chairman until his retirement on his 65th birthday in March 2000.
With his daughter Audrey, he co-founded the Viterbi Group, where today he serves as president. He also serves on the board of directors and technical advisory boards of various startup companies.
Dr. Viterbi is the recipient of numerous honors, including the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell medal, the Marconi Fellowship, and an honorary degree from the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” He is an IEEE Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
![[Andrew and Erna Viterbi]](http://www.scripps.edu/philanthropy/images/viterbi.jpg)
Together with his wife, the former Erna Finci, the Viterbis have donated to various charitable causes, including the 2003 naming grant for the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC. They live in La Jolla, California.
— Summary by Joel West
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