Distinguished Alumni Profiles

Profiles on this page:

• Professor David Crawford
• Dr Hugo Gaggioni
• Dr Phil O'Donovan

 

Professor David Crawford - BA (Hons), MSc & PhD

David Crawford has the degrees of BA (Hons), MSc and PhD in Image Coding, and has been Visiting Professor at Essex University since 1996 with interests in mobile and broadband networks.

In the 1980's, David was Head of the Advanced TV Systems at British Telecom Research Labs.  During this time, he completed his PhD in image coding, and then worked for two years in the United States with Bell Labs and Bellcore on new digital transmission systems.  After his return to the UK, he continued to work at British Telecom on High Definition TV transmission systems, but left in 1990 to pursue interests in the Broadcast Industry.  After working in several high technology companies, he joined Harris Corporation, becoming Managing Director of their European Broadcast operations in 2003.
 

In 2005 David left Harris to become Director of Business Development for the French digital modulation company TeamCast, and to spend more time at the University of Essex UK - where he is helping to gain funding for new research projects.  He divides his time between working in industry in France and in academia in the UK.
 

David is a Fellow of the IET and a member of the Royal Television Society.  Having chaired the Technical Papers Committee for the annual International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) for many years, he is now Chairman of the overall IBC Conference Committee.  He has been active in various Standards and Industrial Forums, and is Chairman of the ETSI Group ERM TG17 WG2 and has led the European DVB Technical Project Groups on digital broadcast services to mobile terminals and spectrum issues.

 

Dr Hugo Gaggioni

Hugo Gaggioni studied at Essex for a BSc in Telecommunications and graduated with First Class Honours.  He then took an MSc in Electronics, graduating in 1979 and went on to obtain degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University in the USA.  He is now Chief Technology Officer for the Broadcast and Production Systems Division of Sony Electronics.
 

Hugo joined Sony in 1988.  He holds six patents and has authored 32 technical publications in the areas of video compression, digital filter banks and HDTV devices and systems.
 

With research interests ranging from digital video and image processing and information theory to video/audio compression and multidimensional signal processing, Hugo has served as session-chairman of 13 international conferences in the areas of HDTV and bandwidth compression systems.  He has also given numerous presentations and tutorial courses on signal processing and advanced video technologies at international events sponsored by SMPTE, IEEE and Eurasip organisations.
 

He was a member of the Advanced Television Advisory Group to the US Federal Communications Commission (1987 to 1994).  He is a fellow of SMPTE and the recipient of the 2004 Leitch Gold Medal Award for technology leadership.  Hugo was Chairman of the SMPTE technical groups on Digital Representation of the 1125/60 High Definition TV Standard (SMPTE 260M, 88-92) and Digital HDTV Serial Interfaces (SMPTE 292M, 93-96).  He was also Chairman for a SMPTE group on Editing of MPEG bit-streams for TV studio usage.  He represented Sony Corporation of America on the ANSI X3-L3 Committee and the ISO/IEC MPEG coding group from 1988 to 1996.

 

Dr Phil O'Donovan

Phil was a PhD student in the department from 1972 to 1975 working under the supervision of Professor Larry Lind.  His research topic was "Character recognition using optical fibres and hardwired logic".  Following Essex University, he worked in the communications industry for nearly 30 years in both small and large companies and now works with the founders, boards and management of venture-backed companies and with those seeking to make investments in emerging companies.
 

Dr Phil O'Donovan is a Co-Founder of CSR plc, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2004, and is now Europe's largest fabless semiconductor company.  He holds BSc, MSc and PhD degrees (all in electrical engineering), is a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, a Chartered Engineer and a Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert Gold Medal winner in recognition (together with four other CSR staff) of CSR's market-leading BlueCoreTM family of fully integrated 2.4 GHz radio, baseband and microcontroller CMOS silicon chips.