Professor Tony Fagan received the PhD in Electronic Engineering from University College Dublin (UCD). He spent a number of years working on advanced digital communication research at Marconi Research laboratories in England. On his return to UCD in 1980 he established the DSP research group. Well over 100 research graduates have been produced by the group. Through his work at UCD he helped establish a strong digital signal processing industry in Ireland with many companies being founded by his research graduates – often with his help. Many of these companies are now world leaders in the area of physical-layer communications design. For this work Tony was awarded the 2016 Charles Parsons medal by the Irish Academy of Engineering.