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Karlheinz Brandenburg (born June 20, 1954, in Erlangen, Germany) is an audio engineer and has been a driving force behind some of today’s most innovative digital audio technology, notably the audio compression format MPEG Audio Layer 3, more commonly known as MP3.

He received a Dipl. Ing. degree from Erlangen University in Electrical Engineering (1980) as well as a Dipl. Math. degree in Mathematics (1982). In 1989 he obtained his Ph.D. from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in Electrical Engineering for his work on digital audio coding and perceptual measurement techniques. The research results of his dissertation are the basis of MPEG-1 Layer 3 (mp3), MPEG-2 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) and most other modern audio compression schemes. During his time with AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, USA from 1989 to 1990 he was working on ASPEC and MPEG-1 Layer 3. In 1990 he returned to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg to accomplish further research within the field of audio coding. In 1993 he became head of the Audio/Multimedia department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen. Since 2000, Karlheinz Brandenburg is full professor at the Institute for Media Technology at Ilmenau Technical University. At the same time he is the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau. Karlheinz Brandenburg has memberships in different international standards committees. He is Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and head of the AES Standards Committee working group SC-06-04 „Internet Audio Delivery Systems“. Prof. Brandenburg has been granted 25 patents and has several more pending.

Karlheinz Brandenburg has received a number of awards including the AES silver medal award (1998), the German Internet Award NEO (2001) and the IEEE Engineering Excellence Award (2000). Together with two colleagues he received the German Future Award in 2000. In May 2004, he was honored with the »IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronic Award« for major contributions to digital audio source coding.

• 1990 Graduation Award of the Technical Faculty, University Erlangen-Nuremberg
• 1994 Nomination to "Fellow" (Fellowship Award) of Audio Engineering Society (AES)
• 1996 Innovation Award: Approval of Bavarian State Government
• 1998 Audio Engineering Society: Silver Medal for "continued contributions and leadership in the art and science of perceptual audio coding"
• 2000 Audio Engineering Society: Board of Governess Award
• October 2000: Ceremony of German Future Award of Federal President for developing of the mp3 format to Karlheinz Brandenburg, Harald Popp and Bernhard Grill
• 2000 Consumer Electronics Society, IEEE: Engineering Excellence Award, Region 10
• 13 December 2001: German Internet Award NEO
• 2003 Audio Engineering Society: Publications Award
• 2004 SPUTNIK Innovator Award
• May 2004, IEEE: Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronic Award "for major contributions to digital audio source coding"

• Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology (IDMT)
• Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS)
• Information of the IIS about the German Future Award 2000
• Institute for Media Technology of the TU Ilmenau
• Audio Engineering Society
• IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award
• German Future Award
• Association for Computing Machinery Video Interviews with Karlheinz Brandenburg