EE Alumnus Mr. John C. Borum, Vice President for Advanced Technologies in the Wireless Business Unit for Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs, joined the Department’s Advisory Board this fall.

Borum, who earned his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Maryland and M.S. degree from MIT, has been with Bell Labs since 1972, when he joined the Digital Regenerator Design Group in Holmdel, New Jersey. Since then, he has worked for Bell Labs’ 5ESS Digital Interface Design Group, the 5ESS Switch Module Development Department, Network Wireless Systems Development, and New Process Introduction, New and Changed Design, Global Manufacturing Planning. He has also served as the Global Environment, Health, and Safety Vice President and was responsible for environmental, product and occupational safety for Lucent.

In his current role, Borum is responsible for identifying new technology concepts and services across wireless channels and integrating them with existing and emerging wireless products. In addition, he leads several new Product Realization Centers, which are responsible for decreasing time to market by expanding development and manufacturing processes and integrating new-found technologies. He also has development responsibility for Airloop®.

Borum has twice received the AT&T Architecture Award. He has been honored with the Certificate of Recognition for Black Engineer of the Year Award, and was also elected to the Board of Directors for Resources of the Future.

Alumnus Michael Barr has Book Published on Embedded Systems

EE Alumnus Michael Barr recently published a book entitled “Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++,” published by O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., 1999.

Barr, who earned both his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, is also the founder and president of Netrino, a provider of software engineering services and shareware for embedded systems. He has spent most of his career so far developing embedded software, device drivers, and real-time operating systems.

His recently-released book introduces embedded systems to C and C++ programmers. Topics include testing memory devices, writing and erasing Flash memory, verifying nonvolatile memory contents, controlling on-chip peripherals, device driver design and implementation, optimizing embedded code for size and speed, and making the most of C++ without a performance penalty.

EE Alumnus Ram Mukunda Awarded 1998 Entrepeneur of the Year

Mr. Ram Mukunda, EE alumnus and President and CEO of Startec Global Communications Corp., was named the 1998 Greater Washington Entrepreneur of the Year in the communications category.

Mukunda, who earned B.S. degrees in both Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, as well as his M.S. in Electrical Engineering at Maryland, founded Startec in 1987 with the sole intention of limiting the amount of money that new immigrants to the U.S. spend trying to keep in touch with their families and friends overseas. Since then, the company has prospered, with profits rising by an incredible 237% for the 1997 fiscal year.

Startec is a facilities–based, international long distance carrier, which markets its services to select ethnic U.S. residential communities. The company provides its services through a flexible network of owned and leased transmission facilities, resale arrangements and a variety of operating agreements and termination agreements, allowing the company to terminate traffic worldwide.

The Entrepreneur of the Year Award is sponsored by Ernst & Young, LLP, The Nasdaq Stock Market, The Washington Post, Holland & Knight, LLP, First Union Bank, and Newstalk 630 WMAL Radio.