ROLF JOHANNESSON was born in Hässleholm, Sweden, on July 3, 1946. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1970 and 1975, respectively, both from Lund University, Lund, Sweden, and the degree of Professor, honoris causa , from the Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, in 2000.

From 1970 to 1976, he held various teaching and research positions in the Department of Telecommunication Theory at the University of Lund. During 1973–1974, he spent 14 months in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN. While at the University of Notre Dame, he was awarded the American-Scandinavian Fellowship for the period of August 1973 to June 1974. He was an Associate Professor of Computer Engineering at Lund University 1976 to 1985. In 1985, he received the Chair of Information Theory at Chalmers Institute of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. Since 1986, he has been Head of the Department of Information Theory, Lund University. During 1988–1993 he was Dean of the School of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Sciences, and during 1990–1995, he was a member of the Swedish Research Council for Engineering Science. He was Associate Editor of the Journal of Information & Optimization Sciences from 1980 to 1993 and from 1998 he is Associate Editor for the International Journal of Electronics and Communications. During 1983-1995 he co-chaired seven Russian-Swedish Workshops, which were the chief interactions between Russian and Western scientists in information theory and coding during the Cold War.

His scientific interests include information theory, error-correcting codes, and cryptography. In addition to papers in the area of convolutional codes and cryptography, he has authored two textbooks on switching theory and digital design (both in Swedish) and one on information theory (in both Swedish and German) and coauthored Fundamentals of Convolutional Coding, IEEE Press, 1999, and Understanding Information Transmission, IEEE Press/Wiley-Interscience, 2005. He became a Fellow of the IEEE in 1998 and an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 2006.