Professor Ingrid Daubechies ForMemRS

Ingrid Daubechies is a Belgian American mathematician whose work focuses on applications of mathematics to a wide range of fields. She started her career in mathematical physics, branching out to signal analysis a few years after her Ph.D. Her construction of bases of wavelets supported on finite intervals not only solved fundamental mathematical problems, but also had a large impact on signal and image processing; some of her work is used in the image compression standard JPEG-2000. She has played a unique role in making wavelets a practical basic tool of applied mathematics with major impacts on medical imaging, remote sensing, and digital photography, and she has also introduced sophisticated mathematical techniques to art conservation and evolutionary biology.

Professional position

  • James B Duke Professor, Department of Mathematics, Duke University
  • James B Duke Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University

Subject groups

  • Computer Sciences

    Numerical computing

  • Mathematics

    Applied mathematics and theoretical physics

  • Astronomy and Physics

    Mathematical and theoretical physics

  • Other

    Public engagement