Dr. Hayes grew up in California and attended the University of California, Berkeley where he received his B.A. in Physics in 1971. After graduation, he worked as a systems engineer with Aerojet Electro Systems in IR imaging systems until 1974, when he entered the graduate program in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his S.M. degree in 1978 and his Sc.D. in 1981, both in electrical engineering. His M.S. thesis was concerned with image coding, and his Sc.D. thesis was on the reconstruction of multidimensional signals from Fourier transform phase or magnitude.

Dr. Hayes joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 1981. Since joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, Dr. Hayes has become internationally recognized for his contributions to the field of digital signal processing, image and video processing, and engineering education. He has published over 150 papers, is the author of two textbooks, and has received numerous awards and distinctions from professional societies. In 1992, he was elected to the grade of Fellow of the IEEE.