2001 Mahboob Khan Outstanding Mentor Award Winners

Charles J. Alpert of IBM Corp. has worked with Dr. Sachin Sapatnekar and his students at the University of Minnesota effectively for several years. The work has resulted in several coauthored papers, one being selected for the Best Paper Award at DAC 2001. He has encouraged the students to develop solutions to real industry issues, and he contributed to the incorporation of these results into IBM's methodology. He has facilitated the placement of several students at IBM.

Dejan Jovanovic of Motorola Inc. has been especially proactive in forging a strong collaborative program that is benefitting Purdue University, Motorola and SRC. His work with SRC student Ramesh Venugopal has resulted in the co-development of improved numerical methods and physical models. The work was presented as a joint publication at last year's IEDM. Throughout his time with students at Purdue University, he has shared not only his technical skills in quantum scale device modeling but also has encouraged the application of these evolving tools to current problems in technology.

Robert Kurshan of Lucent Technologies (Bell Labs) is a long time participant in mentoring activities at Carnegie Mellon University and, more recently, the University of Texas/ Austin and the University of Utah. Bob's contributions in the areas of formal verification and model checking have become the industry standard. His perceptive questions and comments during the review process have guided both students and professors to a clearer understanding of the formal verification process. He has made special effort to meet with new investigators, give them advice, counsel and, most importantly, provide examples to guide their research program to success. Over the years, he has arranged for multiple student internships and permanent hires at Bell Labs.