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January 2007 Vol. 77,
no. 1S
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| THE EDUCATOR: Newton sought ways to get students involved in research that had engaging real-world applications, like his project ICT4B—Information and Communication Technology for Billions—designed to bring simple technologies to the developing world. BART NAGEL PHOTO
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Dean of Engineering Richard Newton:
“He was just larger than life.”
A. Richard Newton, EECS professor and dean of Berkeley’s
College of Engineering was a pioneer in electronic design automation
and integrated circuit design and a visionary leader in the technology
industry.
Newton’s eloquence and magnetism drew widespread attention to
his ideas for engineering’s potential role in tackling society’s
most difficult challenges, particularly in developing nations.
“Rich Newton was a man of incomparable vision,” said Berkeley
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. “Dynamic and entrepreneurial, he
understood the power of engineering and technology in entirely new
ways. This is an enormous loss for us at UC Berkeley, for California,
and indeed for the international engineering community.”
Born July 1, 1951, in Melbourne, Australia, Newton earned his bachelor’s
and master’s at the University of Melbourne in 1973 and 1975,
respectively. A fortuitous meeting in the early 1970s with the late
EECS professor Donald Pederson kick-started Newton’s lifelong
interest in electronic design automation (EDA). Pederson spearheaded the development
of SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis), a computer
simulation program used in the design of virtually every electronic chip.
While still a student in Australia, Newton worked with Pederson on
an early version of SPICE and became a major force behind it when Pederson recruited
him to Berkeley in 1975, where he continued his work in circuit simulation
and design automation. He earned his Ph.D. in EECS in 1978 and was
appointed to the engineering faculty later that year.
“It is rare for a research university to hire its own grad students
immediately following their graduate work,” said Paul Gray, EECS
professor, former Berkeley executive vice chancellor and provost, and
Newton’s predecessor as engineering dean. “But Rich was
such a brilliant guy, we knew we couldn’t let him get away.”
Newton quickly scaled the academic ladder and by 1985 was a full professor.
He served as EECS chair from 1999 to 2000, then dean of engineering
and the Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering from 2000 until his
death.
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| THE
TECHNOLOGIST: One of Newton’s legacies
is CITRIS, the Center for Information Technology Research
in the Interest of Society, which he helped found in 2001
to spearhead creative information technologies in areas like
global health and energy. Here, he celebrates a CITRIS milestone
with Chancellor Robert Birgeneau (left) and inaugural director
Ruzena Bajcsy (right). Tragically, Newton did not live to
see completion of the new CITRIS headquarters, now under
construction. AARON WALBURG
PHOTO
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One of Newton’s most prominent legacies will be the Berkeley-based
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society
(CITRIS), one of four California Institutes of Science and Innovation.
He was the driving force behind its founding in 2001 to spearhead the
next generation of technologies capable of sustaining California’s
growth and global competitiveness and solving society’s most
critical needs.
“He always had the interest of society in his mind, so much so
that CITRIS can be considered his brainchild,” said Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli,
EECS professor and a close friend and business partner of Newton’s.
In recent years, Newton became a champion of synthetic biology, seeing
the emerging field as a vehicle for applying engineering principles
to bioscience. He played a major role in establishing the Berkeley
Center for Synthetic Biology and the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC).
“The center wouldn’t have happened without Rich,” said
SynBERC director Jay Keasling, professor in the Departments of Chemical
Engineering
and Bioengineering. “He was an incredible supporter and an excellent
spokesperson for the center. One of the greatest things about Rich
was that he was unstoppable. He was just larger than life.”
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| THE
ENTREPRENEUR: Newton hosted a conversation with Microsoft’s
Bill Gates at Zellerbach Auditorium in October 2004. Active
in industry as well as academics, Newton enlisted the full
participation of industry and its representatives at every
level of College of Engineering activities. PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO
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From 1998 to 2002, Newton served as founding director of the MARCO/DARPA
Gigascale Silicon Research Center (GSRC), a major private-public partnership
to fund and coordinate long-range academic and industrial research.
He was active in industry, helping to found a number of design technology
companies, including SDA Systems (now Cadence Design Systems), Synopsys,
PIE Design Systems (now part of Cadence), Simplex Solutions and Crossbow.
Newton advised several venture capital firms, including the Mayfield
Fund and Tallwood Venture Capital, where he contributed to both evaluation
and early stage development of more than two dozen new companies.
“Newton had an astute business mind, something you wouldn’t
necessarily expect from an academic,” said Dado Banatao, managing
partner of Tallwood and chair of the College’s Engineering Advisory
Board. “There
are a lot of visionaries out there, but when you have a visionary technologist,
you understand how technologies can be applied to solve the right problems.”
Richard Blum, San Francisco financier, philanthropist and vice chair
of the UC Regents, credits Newton with helping develop the concept
for the Richard C. Blum Center for Developing Economies, a major initiative
launched in April 2006 with a $15 million gift from Blum.
A strong champion for women engineers, Newton as dean nearly doubled
the number of women on the engineering faculty from 15 in 2000 to 27
today. He also served on the Board of Trustees for the Anita Borg Institute
for Women and Technology, an advocacy organization for women in high-technology
careers.
Newton earned numerous awards, including the 2003 Kaufman Award, the
highest recognition for research and entrepreneurial contributions
to the EDA industry. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering,
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association for Computing
Machinery and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers.
As a Berkeley student Newton formed a strong interest in spirituality
and Eastern and Western philosophy, which he maintained throughout
his life. He also enjoyed poetry, painting and hiking.
Newton is survived by his wife, Petra Michel, and daughters Neris,
13, and Amrita, 10, of Orinda; and his mother, Bette Newton; sister,
Jennifer Hayes; and brothers, Robert and Michael Newton, all of Greater
Melbourne, Australia.
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