Former Dean James Gibbons wins IEEE Founders Medal
James F. Gibbons, a professor of electrical engineering and former dean of the Stanford School of Engineering, will be honored with the 2011 IEEE Founders Medal for commitment to innovation and fostering relationships between academia and industry. Gibbons built Stanford's first solid-state semiconductor processing laboratory in 1957 and was instrumental in creating Stanford's Center for Integrated Systems in 1980, uniting hardware and software in very-large-scale-integration (VLSI) chips.
As dean, Gibbons assimilated the Department of Computer Science into the School of Engineering. His scientific contributions include pioneering research on ion implantation and rapid thermal processing for semiconductor chips, foundational technologies of today's semiconductor industry.
The IEEE also announced that Arogyaswami Paulraj, research professor of electrical engineering, emeritus, will be honored with the 2011 Alexander Graham Bell Medal. The medal, sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, recognizes Paulraj, an engineer who developed multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) antenna technology, for pioneering contributions in the application of multiantenna technology to wireless communication systems.
MIMO was developed at Stanford and patented in 1994, and became a key enabler of the "Mobile Internet," revolutionizing mobile wireless communications with high-speed access to multimedia services, higher data rates and wider coverage areas. MIMO uses multiple antennas to transmit and receive data allowing parallel data streams on the same channel.
IEEE is an international professional organization dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. Gibbons and Paulraj will be honored during a ceremony in San Francisco Aug. 20.
