On November 17, 2014, the signal processing world lost Anastasios N. Venetsanopoulos. Tas, as he was known to his friends and colleagues, had a long and prolific career that spanned over 40years, wherein he established himself as an internationally renowned and respected researcher, a prolific author and an exceptionally gifted educator. Tas was widely regarded as a world authority and a pioneer of the signal processing field. Specifically, his research in multimedia systems, digital signal and image processing, digital communications, biometrics and neural networks is internationally acclaimed, both in academia and industry, and resulted in nine books (including [1–4]), 35 book chapters and 900 technical papers with over 14,000 citations. He was a mentor to over 160 graduate students and researchers and an educator to thousands of undergraduate students while serving, with distinction, in a number of key administrative positions within the University of Toronto and Ryerson University, both in Toronto, Canada. Tas earned his Bachelor of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering degree from the National Technical University of Athens in 1965, and a Master of Applied Science, a Master of Philosophy and a Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering from Yale University in 1966, 1968 and 1969, respectively. He joined the Department of Electrical Engi-