Robert J. McEliece (May 21, 1942 – May 8, 2019) was the Allen E. Puckett Professor and a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) best known for his work in error-correcting coding and information theory. He was the 2004 recipient of the Claude E. Shannon Award and the 2009 recipient of the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal. He was a life fellow of the IEEE in and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1998. He had three daughters and one son. He died in Pasadena, California on May 8, 2019.