Richard was an inspiration, mentor, and close friend to a
great many of us at HP and elsewhere in the Valley. He was a large man
with a larger smile, looking every bit the former Australian Rules footballer
that he was. Nonetheless, his personality was always bigger.
Richard filled a room just by entering it, and was so comfortable and at ease
with himself and the world that he made everyone, from an undergraduate intern
to the great and powerful, at ease within minutes. It was this persona as
much as his considerable technical brilliance that let him succeed, seemingly
effortlessly, in so many positions over the course of his 30-year career: as a
professor of electrical engineering, who was a constant winner of awards for
his charismatic classroom style; as one of the
pre-eminent researchers in the field of computer-aided design of integrated
circuits (Kaufman award winner); as a founder of at least two billion-dollar
companies (Cadence and Synopsys) — I’m sure there were others; as a venture
capitalist with Mayfield; as chair of the EECS Department; as the inspiration
behind the Center for Information Technology Research in Society (CITRIS); and,
finally, as perhaps the greatest engineering dean in UC Berkeley’s storied
history.
A recent article in the SF Chronicle covered progress made at HP, with the help of CITRIS researchers, on finding cheaper ways to cool down a data center.
The two top prizes at the CET Technology Breakthrough Competition went to projects on a low-cost disposable genome chip and a portable screening device for dengue fever.
Researchers from the Sierra Nevada Hydrologic Observatory are installing a unique network of ground sensors, weather gear and other
equipment to measure how much snow and ice build up each winter in the 400-mile
Sierra range and then track where the snowmelt goes.
The
National Institutes of
Health has provided $1.35 million to a team of researchers at UC Santa Cruz working to develop
new statistical approaches that could dramatically improve the care for
severely ill newborn babies.
