Karlheinz Brandenburg was born June 20, 1954. He is currently 68 years old. Karlheinz Brandenburg attended Friedrich-Alexander University and earned a PhD there in Electrical Engineering. Brandenburg holds 100 patents, the German Internet Award NEO, the IEEE Region 10 Engineering Excellence award, the AES Silver Medal, and the German Future award. Brandenburg is the inventor of the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly known as the mp3. Brandenburg's dissertation research forms the basics of MPEG-2 AAC. He has been a full professor and director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau.