Distinguished Alumni Awards winners are selected each year by the EE and CS Chairs in consultation with the EECS Faculty Awards Committee and with input from the EECS faculty. Winners receive a plaque awarded at a departmental event, typically the annual BEARS conference.

  • 2024
    • David Allstot (Ph.D. 1979, advisors: Robert Brodersen and Paul Gray), Distinguished Special Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, CMU
    • Richard Murray (M.S 1988/Ph.D. 1990, advisor: S. Shankar Sastry), Everhart Professor of Control & Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering, Caltech
    • Kishore Seendripu (Ph.D. 1996, advisor: Theodore Van Duzer), co-founder, CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board of Maxlinear
  •  2023
    • Colin Parris (M.S. 1987/Ph.D. 1994, advisor: Domenico Ferrari), Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, GE Digital
    • Dawn Tilbury (M.S. 1992/Ph.D. 1994, advisor: Shankar Sastry), Professor, University of Michigan
  • 2022
    • Nickhil Jakatdar (Ph.D. 2000, advisor: Costas Spanos), CEO of GenePath Diagnostics
    • Bruce Hajek (Ph.D. 1979, advisor: Eugene Wong), Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • 2021
    • Hsing Kung (Ph.D. 1975, advisor: William Oldham), Managing Partner of Acorn Campus Ventures
    • George Pappas (Ph.D. 1998, advisor: Shankar Sastry), UPS Foundation Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
  • 2020
    • Willy Sansen (Ph.D. 1972, advisor: Robert G. Meyer), Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
    • Valerie Taylor (M.S. 1986 / Ph.D. 1991, advisor: David Messerschmitt), Director of the MCS Division of Argonne National Laboratory
  • 2019
    • Ahmad Bahai (Ph.D. 1993, advisor: Pravin P. Varaiya), Chief Technical Officer, Texas Instruments
    • Sharad Malik (Ph.D. 1990, advisor: Robert K. Brayton), Chair of Electrical Engineering, Princeton
  • 2018
    • Andrea Goldsmith (B.A. 1986/M.S. 1991/Ph.D. 1994, advisor: Pravin Varaiya), Stephen Harris Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford
    • Richard Ruby (Ph.D. 1984, advisor: Theodore Van Duzer), Director of Technology at Broadcom
  • 2017
    • Anantha Chandrakasan, Head of the EECS Department, MIT
    • Wayne Dai, Founder, President and CEO of VeriSilicon
  • 2016
    • Jyuo-Min Shyu, Former Minister of Science and Technology, Taiwan; Professor, National Tsing Hua University; Former President, Industrial Technology Research Institute
    • Theodore Kamins, Stanford
  • 2015
    • Asad Abidi, UCLA
    • Ta-Lin Hsu, Chairman and Founder, H&Q Asia Pacific
  • 2014
    • Tzu-Yin Chiu, CEO and Executive Director, SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation)
    • Mark Liu, President and Co-CEO, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
  • 2013
    • Nick McKeown, Stanford University
    • Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO, SanDisk
  • 2012
    • Charles Shank, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
    • Sehat Sutardja, Chairman, President and CEO, Marvell Technology Group
  • 2011
    • Stephen Boyd, Stanford University
    • Jin-Fu Chang, former governor, Taiwan Province
  • 2010
    • Gary May, Dean, College of Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
    • Teresa Meng, Stanford University
  • 2009
    • Ilesanmi Adesida, Professor, former Provost, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • 2008
    • Belle Wei, Professor, San Jose State University; former Provost, CSU Chico
  • 2003
    • Stephen Beck, technology artist, founder, Beck-Tech Corporation
    • Bruce A. Wooley, Stanford University
  • 2001
    • Ming J. Chien, Founder and Chairman of 3CEMS Group
    • Steve Sung-Mo Kang, President of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; previously chancellor, UC Merced, dean of Engineering, UC Santa Cruz
  • 2000
    • Robert W. Dutton, Stanford University
    • Mihir Parikh, Founder, CEO, and President, Aquest Systems
  • 1999
    • William G. Howard, Jr., Independent Consulting Engineer
    • Noel C. MacDonald, UC Santa Barbara, previously Director of the Federal Microsystems Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • 1998
    • Mohammed Ghausi, UC Davis Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dean Emeritus of the UCD College of Engineering
    • Barry G. Haskell, Apple
  • 1997
    • David Auston, Executive Director, Chemical Life Cycle Collaborative (CLiCC) and Director, Carbon Neutrality Initiative at the Institute for Energy Efficiency
    • James Dao, Founder, president, and CEO, Genyous Biomed
  • 1996
    • Stephen Director, Senior Advisor to the President and University Distinguished Professor, Northeastern University; formerly at Drexel University, University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon University; founder, SRC-CMU Research Center for Computer-Aided Design
    • Robert Pepper, Vice President, Global Technology Policy, Cisco; Founder, Level One Communications (acquired by Intel)
  • 1995
    • Len Adleman, Professor. University of Southern California
  • 1994
    • Randy Katz, United Microelectronics Corporation Distinguished Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley
  • 1992
    • William Joy, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, Sun Microsystems
    • Jean-Paul Jacob, Researcher Emeritus, IBM; Special Advisor, CITRIS, UC Berkeley
  • 1991
    • Hervé Gallaire, Senior VP and CTO, Xerox Corporation and Xerox Innovation Group