UCSB Nobel Prize Winner Awarded Top Engineering Medal

UCSB professor and Nobel Prize winner Herbert Kroemer has been awarded the 2002 Medal of Honor by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Kroemer was given the IEEE’s highest-awarded medal for his work on the heterostructure devices in technology that use high-speed communications, such as the Internet and cellular phones, and the optical communications of lasers and traffic lights.

Compact discs are the first example of technology using heterostructure lasers. In the early 1960’s, CDs were only operational in laboratory conditions of extremely low temperatures.

“I was given an explanation of why this was a fundamental research and when I heard this explanation my response was, ‘well, that’s a pile of nonsense,'” Kroemer said. “I pointed out right on the spot what would have to be done in order to get these devices to operate continuously at ordinary temperature.”

Kroemer’s first recognition for his achievements was the Gallium Arsenic Symposium Award in 1982. He has won several awards in electrical and computer engineering, including the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, the highest honor awarded by the German government, in October 2001, and the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000.

The actual IEEE Medal of Honor will be presented to Kroemer at an awards ceremony in June. Kroemer said he would most likely place the medal on his bookshelf at home next to a replica of his Nobel Prize.

UCSB Launches Campaign to Save Radio Station

KDB-97.3, a local classical musical station, will be up for sale unless UCSB, and a coalition of 21 local cultural arts and community organizations can raise $3.6 million by March 31.

UCSB will have majority ownership of the radio station and plans to keep the classical music format if the fund raising is successful.

If the fund-raising campaign is unsuccessful, the radio station will be sold on the open market, and potential buyers would then convert the station to a rock-and-roll format, a more profitable alternative.

To date, the station has received 164 gifts, all from local community members, totaling $23,498, falling well below the needed $3.6 million.

KDB is one of only 29 full-time, independently-owned radio stations that plays strictly classical music in the United States and reaches 35,000 listeners.

If the university is able to raise the necessary funds, they will hire a management company to operate the station. UCSB also plans to form a community advisory group to help develop programming.

Regardless of what happens with KDB, Elizabeth Robinson, the advisor for KCSB, UCSB’s campus station, said that KCSB would not be affected.

Anyone interested in contributing to the fund may send a tax-deductible donation to the KDB fund of the Santa Barbara Foundation, 15 E. Carillo St., Santa Barbara, 93101. For more information, contact Marsha Marcoe at 893-2035.

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