The ECE Academy honors alumni who have made a significant mark in any area to which ECE alumni contribute—industry, entrepreneurship, government, academia and scholarship.
The inaugural class was inducted at the celebration of the department’s 100th anniversary on Nov. 6, 2009. Recipients received a medallion in recognition of the honor.

To be eligible for consideration, the nominee must have graduated from UF’s Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at least a decade ago and have made a national contribution in his/her field. Academy members are inducted once per year at the annual Spring Banquet.

2009 Inductees

Ossian W. Drane, BSEE 1909

Received the First Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from UF

Neal Storter, BSEE 1912

Originator of the Gator Mascot

John Atanasoff, BSEE 1925

Inventor of the Digital Computer

Robert Pittman, BSEE 1950

Distinguished Flying Cross Recipient

Don Estridge, BSEE 1959

“Father of the IBM PC”

Robert ‘Gator’ Handley, BSEE 1962

Director of Marketing, Allied/Signal

A. Wayne Bennett, PhD  1966

Former Dean at Clemson and Mississippi State University, Board of Directors of the IEC, ECEDHA and the IEEE Foundation

Manuel Fernandez, BSEE 1967

Entrepreneur, Founder of Gavilan Computer Corp, CEO of Gartner

Leon W. Couch, II, ME 1964, PhD 1968

UF Professor Emeritus and Textbook Author

Victor Zue, BSEE 1968

Director, MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

Richard Jaeger, BSEE 1966, ME 1966, PhD 1969

Auburn Distinguished University Professor and Textbook Author

Sachio Semmoto, PhD 1971

Entrepreneur, founder of DDI Corp, eAccess Ltd.

James Spoto, BSEE 1973, ME 1974

President and CEO of Applied Wave Research

Pedro Rustan, PhD 1979

Air Force Colonel, Retired

Christopher Tice, BSEE 1981

Cadence Corporate Vice President and General Manager

Jack L. Kouloheris, BSEE 1982

Senior Manager, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

Chris Malachowsky, BSEE 1983

Co-Founder of NVIDIA

Hyung-Kyu Lim, PhD 1984

CTO of Samsung

Mark Adler, MSEE 1985

Jet Propulsion Laboratory Fellow, Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover “Spirit”, and Data Compression pioneer

R. Alan Hastings, BSEE 1985

Senior Design Engineer, TI Fellow, Textbook Author

Lesa Roe, BSEE 1986

Head of NASA Langley Research Center

Paul Suchoski, BSEE 1982, ME 1985, PhD 1986

Entrepeneur, former VP Uniphase, former CEO Optium

Timothy Tucker, BSEE 1988

President, Tucker-Davis Technologies

Chuan Wang, PhD, 1996

Founder & CEO Teleepoch, Ltd

Linda C. Rae, BSEE 1997

Chief Operating Officer of Keithley Instruments