Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow

Adjunct Research Fellow of the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)

 

390 Rhodes Hall
Phone: (607) 255-0429
E-mail: johnson at ece.cornell.edu 

 

B.E.E. with high honors, 1973, (Georgia Institute of Technology); M.S.E.E. 1975; Ph.D. E.E. with minors in Engineering-Economic Systems and Art History, 1977 (Stanford University)

C. Richard Johnson, Jr. was born in Macon, GA in 1950. He received a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, along with the first PhD minor in Art History granted by Stanford, in 1977. After 4 years on the faculty at Virginia Tech, he joined the Cornell University faculty in 1981, where he is a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

At the start of 2007, Professor Johnson accepted a 5-year appointment as an Adjunct Research Fellow of the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) to facilitate the interaction of art historians and conservation specialists with algorithm-building signal processors. In May 2007, Professor Johnson served as general chairman of the First International Workshop on Image Processing for Artist Identification -- which he conceived and organized -- held at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. He was interviewed on NPR for the show Science Friday on May 18, 2007, about this workshop. NOVA Science Now filmed a segment during the workshop about computer-based image analysis in assistance of art authentication that was broadcast July 2, 2008. The publication in July 2008 of a technical paper describing the efforts from the workshop resulted in an article on emerging assistance from image processing in painting authentication in the Philadelphia Enquirer on July 21, 2008, and an Associated Press story carried, e.g., by the International Herald Tribune on August 11, 2008. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City hosted a revised repeat (Version 1.5) of the workshop on November 9, 2007.

On March 27, 2008, Professor Johnson delivered the James Baker Hughes Lecture ("At the interface of engineering and the humanities") at Rice University on " Applying DSP to the Analysis of Paintings: An Experiment in Cross-Disciplinary Stimulation". Professor Johnson's activity in this cross-disciplinary scholarship was reported in the spring 2008 issue of the Cornell Engineering Magazine and the March 29, 2008 issue of the The Sunny mail (which is the in-house newsletter of the Van Gogh Museum).

Research Interests:

Dr. Johnson's principal research interests have been (i) (1977-1991) adaptive feedback systems theory useful in applications of digital signal processing, digital control, and system identification, (ii) (1991-2005) blind equalization algorithm analysis and creation for digital communication receivers, and (iii) (2005-present) signal processing algorithms in support of painting analysis, presently a canvas thread count automation project that is producing tools capable of substantially expanding the utility of this commonly sought forensic data.

Selected Publications:

Johnson, Jr., C. R., E. Hendriks, I. J. Berezhnoy, E. Brevdo, S. M. Hughes, I. Daubechies, J. Li, E. Postma, and J. Z. Wang, "Image Processing for Artist Identification: Computerized Analysis of Vincent van Gogh's Painting Brushstrokes," IEEE Signal Processing Magazine (Special Section - Signal Processing in Visual Cultural Heritage), pp. 37-48, July 2008.

Johnson, Jr., C. R. and W. A. Sethares, Telecommunication Breakdown: Concepts of Communication Transmitted via Software-Defined Radio, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.

Treichler, J. R., C. R. Johnson, Jr., and M. G. Larimore, Theory and Design of Adaptive Filters, Prentice Hall, 2001 (revision of Treichler, Johnson, and Larimore, Theory and Design of Adaptive Filters, Wiley/Interscience, 1987).

Johnson, Jr., C. R., Lectures on Adaptive Parameter Estimation, Prentice Hall, 1988.

Anderson, B. D. O., R. R. Bitmead, C. R. Johnson, Jr., P. V. Kokotovic, R. L. Kosut, I. M. Y. Mareels, L. Praly, and B. D. Riedle, Stability of Adaptive Systems: Passivity and Averaging Analysis, MIT Press, 1986.

(CV with list of selected journal publications)


Courses:

Fall 2008: ECE 4210 [The Cornell team for the Thread Count Automation Project in AY 08-09 will be chosen from the students taking ECE 421 in Fall 08.]