The 2024 EECS Distinguished Alumni
The EECS Department is proud to present the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Awards in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. The Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences has established a Distinguished Alumni Award to recognize valuable contributions made by the distinguished alumni of Berkeley to the fields of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. The Distinguished Alumni Awards were established in 1991 to honor our most esteemed and accomplished alumni across industry and academia. Since then, we have had the privilege of adding over 116 individuals to the ranks of our Distinguished Alumni in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences.
Five outstanding alumni were named Berkeley EECS Distinguished Alumni Award recipients this year: Nancy Amato, David Allstot, Richard Muray, Lars Rasmussen, and Kishore Seendripu.
Electrical Engineering
David Allstot – Academia
Professor David Allstot received his Ph.D. in EECS at UC Berkeley in 1979, advised by Professors Paul Gray and Bob Bordersen. He taught at the University of Washington, becoming the Boeing-Egtvedt Chair of Engineering, and he served as Chair of the EE department before spending several years at the Berkeley Wireless Research Center as the Executive Director and Mackay Professor in Residence. Most recently he is the Distinguished Special Professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Carnegie Mellon. He has won many awards and recognitions and is a lifetime Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Richard Murray – Academia
Richard M. Murray is a synthetic biologist and the Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control & Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering at Caltech. He graduated with his Ph.D. in EECS at UC Berkeley, advised by Shankar Sastry. He is a co-author of several textbooks on feedback and control systems. Winner of several awards, he has most recently been awarded the IEEE Control Systems Award and the John A. Ragazzi Award for teaching in Control Systems. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013.
Kishore Seendripu – Industry
Dr. Kishore Seendripu is a co-founder and has served as Chairman, President, and CEO of MaxLinear since its inception in 2003. Before that, he worked at several other large engineering firms. Dr. Seendripu received an M.S. in Materials Sciences, a Ph.D. in EECS from UC Berkeley, advised by Ted Van Duzer, and an M.B.A from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has been recognized as an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
Computer Sciences
Nancy Amato – Academia
Professor Nancy Amato is the Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering and head of the Computer Science Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed her M.S. with Manuel Blum at UC Berkeley before going on to complete her Ph.D at UIUC. She is known for her algorithmic contributions to robotics task and motion planning, computational biology and geometry, and parallel and distributed computing and for her commitment to broadening participation in computing. She has won several awards and recognitions and has been selected as the 2026-27 president of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.
Lars Rasmussen – Industry
Lars Rasmussen received his Ph.D from Berkeley EECS in 1998, advised by Alistair Sinclair. Dr. Rasmussen become a leading international software developer and entrepreneur. Most famously, he was co-founder (with his brother Jens) of Where2 Technologies, which was acquired by Google and became Google Maps, used ubiquitously by over a billion people. He was co-founder of Google Wve and founder of Google’s Australian office; Director of Search at Facebook in Menlo Park and London; and co-founder of the innovative music startup Weav Music. He is now an angel investor and advisor for technology startups, based in Athens, Greece.
The 2024 Distinguished Alumni Awards were presented at the Howard Room in the Faculty Club on Tuesday, May 7th. (Photos: Berkeley EECS)
