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Degree Year
  • 1954

Vic Wintriss

Degree(s):

  • BS

I am presently the Executive Director of a non-profit school teaching kids Java starting in the 5th grade. Previously, I founded three electronics manufacturing companies in San Diego and served 20 years as a U.S. Navy patrol plane pilot, retiring at the rank of Commander.

 

 

Degree Year
  • 1986
  • 1989

photo of Bijan Tadayon

Bijan Tadayon

Degree(s):

  • BS
  • PhD

I have been involved with several startup hi-tech companies, as co-founder, advisor, inventor, or investor. Our latest company is: www.ZAdvancedComputing.com

We are working on the next generation search engine and analytics, e.g., for image search and recognition and data reliability. Prof. Lotfi Zadeh, of U.C. Berkeley, is our main inventor/chief technology advisor. He previously invented Fuzzy Logic in the 1960s and co-invented Z-Transform in the 1950s, among many others. Many famous professors are involved in this company. We want to revolutionize the search engine, particularly based on image recognition.

I have worked in various technologies. For five years, I was the Director of Intellectual Properties for ContentGuard, Inc., a major DRM company, which is a Xerox-PARC spin-off, jointly owned by Microsoft, Time Warner, and Thomson. 

I was a co-founder of an educational multi-media software company. I worked for the U.S. Naval Research Lab for more than five years as a semiconductor researcher. I have given 19 invited technical and IP lectures at the U.S. Patent Office and was involved in the Patent Office Training Advisory Board and Work Sharing Roundtable at the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO). I have expertise in many diverse technical fields, including Digital Rights Management (DRM), semiconductors, transistors, software, Internet, security, image processing, telecommunication, and data compression. I am a former Primary Patent Examiner and a former Patent Examiner Trainer at the USPTO.

I have had more than 80 technical journal publications and presentations (in various technical fields) and more than 100 pending or issued U.S. and foreign patents related to security, digital rights management (DRM), and semiconductors, among others. I earned my Ph.D. degree from Cornell related to semiconductors and circuits, with Prof. Lester Eastman. I received my B.S. degree in Applied & Engineering Physics from Cornell. I am also a graduate of the Georgetown Law School. My brother and sister are also Cornellians.

I live in Maryland. You can contact me by phone at 301-294-0434 or bijantadayon@comcast.net.

Degree Year
  • 1980

photo of Scott Peer

Scott Peer

Degree(s):

  • BS

After decades of aerospace work, including wonderful times contributing to space science at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, I decided it was more pressing for me to do something that helps our own planet. And so my energies are now devoted to energy efficiency and related areas. 
I'm a co-founder at Wireless Peak where we are developing smart plugs (electrical outlets) and switches with low power RF communication to allow remote control and energy measurement.

Degree Year
  • 1984

Diana Darcy

Degree(s):

  • BS

I had a very successful engineering career after graduating with my B.S. EE back in 1984. At that time, companies were recruiting heavily, and I was flown out to Silicon Valley a few times for interviews. I had five job offers to choose from. Probably should have gone with Intel, but it all worked out well anyway!

I made the move to Silicon Valley where I still live. I worked for 15 years in high tech at three different companies with increasing levels of responsibility up until I reached acting VP of Engineering, then I took time off with my kids. It was a highly energetic 15 years which I remember very fondly.

During my first position I went to Stanford part-time while working full-time and gained my M.S. EM (Engineering Management) degree in 1989 to help me become an effective manager.  

After staying home a few years, I decided to move into another field---genetics---and went to medical school at Stanford to become a Genetic Counselor. My well-rounded Cornell education is most definitely a contributing factor to my success in this new endeavor. I find that my technical education prepared me very well for the technical challenges of genetics, and my non-engineering Cornell classes helped lay the groundwork for my future in management and counseling.  

Degree Year
  • 1970
  • 1975

William M. Johnson

Degree(s):

  • BS
  • MEng

It’s been a lifetime, it seems, since I was a Cornell EE student. Somehow I missed that we are now alumni of the “ECE” school. In my school days, the “C” was present but not as prevalent in the 60s and early 70s.

After a tour in the Navy, I returned to Cornell with the aim of getting “tooled up” again. This entailed pursuit of an M.E.(Elec) degree awarded in 1975. My Navy background helped in the teamwork required for the electric car and STEECO projects I was involved with. My mentors were Simpson Linke and Joe Rosson, both stellar educators and great folk. After leaving Cornell I took a job with the Navy as a civilian engineer working on ships, mostly submarines.  Eventually I became responsible for a large chunk of the Navy’s sea going computer based systems. I became of pioneer in practice of, what is now known as, "open architecture."

You’ve heard the phrase "do more with less."  We did that---but much better and faster while saving billions of dollars along the way. Bill Bratton (former Chief of Police in NYC and LA) and Zach Tumin (Harvard) included a case study of my work in their book: Collaborate or Perish!: Reaching Across Boundaries in a Networked World. I thank my lucky stars that I was able to attend Cornell and learn so much along the way. 

All the best,  Bill Johnson (BSEE(70), MEE(75))