Gift will provide fellowships for grad students in engineering lab

By Bill Steele

A $200,000 gift from Qualcomm Inc. will provide three new fellowships for graduate students in the Cornell Broadband Communications Research Laboratory (CBCRL). The selected students also will be paired with working Qualcomm engineers who will act as mentors and research collaborators.

The gift includes $150,000 for the support of three graduate students at $50,000 each, along with $50,000 in general research support. It is a one-year grant renewable on a year-to-year basis. It is slightly unusual in that Qualcomm asks that all of the money goes to support students and research, with no administrative overhead costs taken out.

Kornegay

"The intent is to recruit outstanding students and enrich their graduate experience at Cornell through interactions with researchers at Qualcomm working on topics of mutual interest to Qualcomm and CBCRL," said Kevin Kornegay, Cornell associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of CBCRL.

The laboratory conducts research in broadband communication systems, with applications in cellular telephone systems, high performance networking and optical communications. Among other goals, the research could lead to smaller and lighter devices with higher data rates and lower power consumption. The research group currently includes 13 graduate students, along with research support staff.

At least one of the new fellows will be selected from among current students, Kornegay said, noting that many of the students already have government, industrial or university fellowships, and most already have some industrial experience. "One of the things I require of the students is that they do come in with industrial experience," he said. "I've been fortunate to attract some of the very best students, who are creative, independent, highly motivated and focused."

While Qualcomm may be best known on the Cornell campus as the maker of Eudora e-mail software, it is a major player in the world of wireless communications. Irwin Jacobs, founder, CEO and chair of Qualcomm, is a 1954 Cornell graduate.

CBCRL was established in 2000 with corporate donations of radio-frequency chip-design and test equipment, giving students the opportunity to work with equipment equivalent to that used in industry, according to Kornegay. In addition to Qualcomm, corporate sponsors include Agilent, Cadence, Cascade-Microtech, Compaq, IBM and Intel. CBCRL also receives support from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation.