September 22, 2006 Vol. 77, no.
6F
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| PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO |
Professor Minute with EECS professor Randy Katz
EECS professor Randy Katz received his A.B. in CS from Cornell University in 1976, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in CS from UC Berkeley in 1978 and 1980, respectively. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1983, and since 1996, has been the United Microelectronics Corporation Distinguished Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His research interests include distributed and networked systems design and implementation.
What first inspired you to go into engineering?
An extremely charismatic teacher in an introductory computer science course during my freshman year at Cornell influenced the direction of my career (and taught me, by example, the influence a teacher can have on his or her students). If not for Professor David Gries, I would probably have become a medical doctor or pursued some scientific field like chemistry or biology.
What has been the most memorable career moment?
Almost dropping a huge laser printer on President Bill Clinton’s foot in the West Wing of the White House. [Katz spent 1993 to 1994 working for the federal government where, among other things, he started www.whitehouse.gov.] I was (trying to) carry it while on one side of the door to the Rose Garden, and he was opening it up from the outside to step inside. The uniformed Secret Service guards must have been asleep, as they should have blocked me from getting anywhere near him. Anyway, I bobbled the printer, almost but not quite dropping it. The President looked pretty surprised (and terrified too)!
If you had a few extra hours, what would you do?
I love taking my Land Rover out into remote parts of the Nevada and California deserts, though I never do it completely alone. I’ve rolled it twice now, and it would have been a rather long walk to the nearest service station if there wasn’t another vehicle along. I’ve grown to appreciate GPS and satellite phones!
What is one thing you would like to learn how to do?
Fly a helicopter, though I think it is a quite a bit less forgiving than my Land Rover, and the consequences of “operator error” are more significant.
If you would like us to feature your favorite professor, please email his or her name to engnews@coe.berkeley.edu
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