Distinguished Alumni

Fei-Fei Li

MS '02, PhD '05 | Electrical Engineering“As a first-generation AI researcher, it’s simultaneously a privilege and a responsibility to help guide AI technology and application to benefit all humans’ lives, not just a privileged few.”When Fei-Fei Li was a Princeton...

Bob Behnken

MS '93, PhD '97NASA astronaut Bob Behnken, PhD (MS '93, PhD '97) is honored "for his accomplished career as an astronaut on three space missions, including his history-making journey in 2020 as part of the first crew to reach Earth orbit aboard a commercially...

Barbara Burger

PhD '87Barbara Burger, PhD (PhD '87), president of technology ventures and vice president of innovation at Chevron, receives this award "for her long and extraordinary career as a business leader at Chevron, spanning roles in science and business, marketing, and...

Charles Elachi

MS '69, PhD '71Charles Elachi, PhD (MS '69, PhD '71), Caltech professor emeritus of electrical engineering and planetary science, is recognized "for his distinguished leadership in space exploration and planetary science as the longtime director of the Jet Propulsion...

Bob Behnken

MS '93, PhD '97NASA astronaut Bob Behnken, PhD (MS '93, PhD '97) is honored "for his accomplished career as an...

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Barbara Burger

PhD '87Barbara Burger, PhD (PhD '87), president of technology ventures and vice president of innovation at Chevron,...

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Charles Elachi

MS '69, PhD '71Charles Elachi, PhD (MS '69, PhD '71), Caltech professor emeritus of electrical engineering and...

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Laurie Leshin

MS '89, PhD '95Laurie Leshin, PhD (MS '89, PhD '95), president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), is lauded "for her barrier-breaking leadership at universities such as Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which has been recognized for both teaching and research...

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Kam-Yin Lau

BS '78, MS '78, PhD '78Kam-Yin Lau (BS '78, MS '78, PhD '81), professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, is honored for his innovations in and commercialization of laser diode and radio-over-fiber technologies that broadly...

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Sudhir Jain

MS '80, PhD '83Sudhir Kumar Jain (MS '80, PhD '83), vice chancellor of Banaras Hindu University in India, is recognized for his lifesaving impact as India's preeminent earthquake engineer, for his research, advocacy, and establishment of training programs for...

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Bette Korber

PhD '88Bette Korber (PhD '88) is a laboratory fellow in theoretical biology and biophysics at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She is lauded for pioneering achievements in virology research and computational vaccine design, which provide hope against diseases such as...

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Kenneth Suslick

BS '74Kenneth Suslick (BS ’74), the Marvin T. Schmidt Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is recognized for profound contributions to sonochemistry (the study of chemical reactions powered by high-frequency sound waves)...

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Eugene Myers

BS '75Eugene Myers (BS ’75), director of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany, is recognized for his transformative impact on the field of bioinformatics. He created the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) that...

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Karen Maples, MD

BSS '76Karen Maples, MD (BS ’76), who served as an obstetrician and gynecologist at Kaiser Permanente for 38 years, is recognized for her trailblazing role as one of the first Black female undergraduates at Caltech, and for her outstanding accomplishments as an...

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Nader Engheta

MS '79, PhD '82Nader Engheta (MS ’79, PhD ’82), the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is recognized for his pioneering advancements in optics, including optical nanocircuits and metamaterials, which have brought a new understanding to how...

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