Dr. Ralfael Gonzales earned the BSEE degree from the University of Miami in 1965 and the ME and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Florida in 1967 and 1970, respectively. He joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering (now Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) in 1970. He established UT’s Image and Pattern Analysis Laboratory and Robotics and Computer Vision Laboratory. In 1981 he became an IBM Professor, and in 1984 he was named a distinguished service professor.
In 1982 he founded Perceptics Corporation, a pioneer in the technology of image processing, computer vision, and laser disk storage technologies. He was president of the company until 1992. The last three years of his presidency were spent under a full-time employment contract with Westinghouse Corporation, which acquired the company in 1989. Perceptics produced a series of innovative products, including the world’s first commercially available computer vision system for automatically reading the license plate on moving vehicles; a series of large-scale image processing and archiving systems used by the US Navy at six different manufacturing sites throughout the country to inspect the rocket motors of missiles in the Trident II Submarine Program; the market-leading family of imaging boards for Macintosh computers; and a line of trillion-byte laser disk products.
He returned to UT as department head from 1994 to 1997.
Recognitions of his work include the 1977 College of Engineering Faculty Achievement Award, the 1978 Chancellor’s Research Scholar Award, the 1980 Magnavox Engineering Professor Award, the 1980 M. E. Brooks Distinguished Professor Award, a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Miami in 1985, the Phi Kappa Phi Scholar Award in 1986, the 1987 IEEE Outstanding Engineer Award for Commercial Development in Tennessee, the 1988 Albert Rose National Award for Excellence in Commercial Image Processing, the 1989 B. Otto Wheeley award for excellence in technology transfer, the 1989 Coopers and Lybrand Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the 1992 IEEE Region 3 Outstanding Engineer Award, the 1992 Nathan W. Dougherty Award for Excellence in Engineering, and the 1993 Automated Imaging Association National Award for Technology Development.
In 1985 he was a participant in UT’s briefing of US President Ronald Reagan on technology transfer.
He is the author or coauthor of over one hundred technical articles, two edited books, and four textbooks in use at more than one thousand universities, industrial, and research institutions in more than 50 countries, and is the coholder of two patents.
Gonzales has been an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, and the International Journal of Computer and Information Sciences. He is a member of numerous professional and honorary societies, including Tau Beta Pi, Phi Kappa Phi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Sigma Xi. He is a fellow of the IEEE.