IEEE Fellow Henry Samueli, cofounder of Broadcom, is the 2025 IEEE Medal of Honor Laureate. He’s being acknowledged for his “pioneering analysis and commercialization of broadband communication and networking applied sciences, and promotion of STEM schooling.” The information was introduced on 20 February in New York City at a devoted press convention.
Samueli is the primary recipient of the IEEE Medal of Honor since its monetary prize was increased to US $2 million from $50,000. IEEE sponsors the annual award.
Receiving the glory “is overwhelming once I take into consideration all of the previous recipients,” Samueli stated on the press convention. They embrace expertise pioneers and IEEE Life Fellows Robert Kahn, Vint Cerf, and Mildred Dresselhaus.
“Once I have a look at that checklist, it truly is humbling to even be thought of,” Samueli stated. “I’m deeply honored.”
Whereas an engineering professor on the University of California, Los Angeles, within the late Eighties, Samueli and one in every of his Ph.D. college students conceived digital signal processing architectures for broadband communications chips and designed the world’s first chips for digital interactive television. After publishing their analysis, they determined to commercialize their product and in 1991 based Broadcom in San Jose, Calif. They constructed the primary digital cable set-top-box modem chipset, which served because the cable sign receiver.
At present Samueli is chairman of the corporate’s board.
“By way of broadband, Henry Samueli helped revolutionize how the world is related, fostered cultural and financial paradigm shifts of numerous industries, and positively modified how we do all the things right now,” 2022 IEEE President and CEO K. J. Ray Liu stated on the information convention. Liu can be the chair of the Advert Hoc Committee on Elevating the Status of IEEE Awards. “As well as, his prolific philanthropy has deeply impacted many lives for the higher—from beneficiant help of STEM education to a pledge to present away the vast majority of his cash throughout his lifetime. These contributions are exemplary for technologists, modeling the affect they will haven’t simply on the world they reside in however for individuals who comply with them.”
One engine of Samueli’s philanthropy, the Samueli Foundation, helps science, expertise, engineering, and math schooling; integrative well being; youth providers; and social justice packages.
This 12 months’s Medal of Honor, together with different high-profile IEEE awards, shall be introduced on the IEEE Honors Ceremony, to be held on 24 April in Tokyo.
A video of the information convention held on 20 February throughout which IEEE Fellow Henry Samueli, a Broadcom cofounder, was named the 2025 IEEE Medal of Honor Laureate.
Creating broadband expertise
Samueli, who grew up in Los Angeles, was impressed to pursue a profession in electrical engineering after constructing an AM/FM shortwave radio utilizing a Heathkit electronics equipment for a store class, in accordance with a 2021 Institute profile of Samueli. After graduating highschool, he attended UCLA, the place he earned a bachelor’s diploma in 1975, a grasp’s diploma in 1976, and a doctorate in 1980, all in electrical engineering. He then joined protection contractor TRW at its Redondo Seashore, Calif., campus as a member of the technical workers.
Whereas there, he additionally taught engineering programs at California State University, Northridge, and UCLA. In 1985 he accepted UCLA’s supply to develop into an EE professor. Along with instructing, he supervised analysis packages in broadband communications circuits and digital signal processing. It was at UCLA that he and one in every of his Ph.D. college students based Broadcom.
Samueli took a go away of absence from UCLA to work at Broadcom full time as its CTO. He served in that place till 2018, two years after the corporate merged with semiconductor producer Avago Applied sciences, additionally of San Jose.
Supporting STEM schooling
Samueli has made main societal, instructional, and financial affect by way of his philanthropic work, donating greater than $1 billion to organizations specializing in STEM schooling, underserved youth, and integrative well being.
In 2000 he and his spouse, Susan, donated $30 million to UCLA’s engineering college, which then was named after him. In 2019 the Samueli Basis donated $100 million extra.
“By way of broadband, Henry Samueli helped revolutionize how the world is related, fostered cultural and financial paradigm shifts of numerous industries, and positively modified how we do all the things right now.” —Okay. J. Ray Liu
The inspiration additionally gave $200 million in 2017 to the University of California, Irvine. The college used the present for the development and endowment of the Samueli College of Health Sciences, which focuses on interdisciplinary integrative well being.
Samueli and his spouse based the Samueli Academy in Santa Ana, Calif., an underserved neighborhood in Orange County. The general public constitution college is for center and highschool college students, a few of whom reside in foster care.
The Samuelis are members of the Giving Pledge, a bunch that consists of main philanthropists who promise to present away the vast majority of their cash throughout their lifetime.
Recommendation for the subsequent era of engineers
After the press convention in New York, Samueli joined 2025 IEEE President and CEO Kathleen Kramer, the group’s Government Director and COO Sophia Muirhead, and Liu, for a fireplace chat. Samueli defined the position IEEE has performed in his profession, and he spoke to the subsequent era of engineers.
He joined IEEE when he was a UCLA undergraduate, he stated, as a result of he needed to entry the analysis of college and college students from world wide.
“IEEE has been a useful useful resource for me all through my profession,” he stated. “I wouldn’t have been capable of accomplish something with out IEEE’s sources.”
Samueli, an eminent member of the IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honor society, acquired the 2021 IEEE Founders Medal for “management in analysis, growth, and commercialization of broadband communication and networking expertise with world affect.”
When requested by Muirhead to advise present college students and young professionals, he stated: “Fasten your seat belts as a result of the world is altering at a tempo now that now we have by no means seen earlier than.
“Once I completed my school profession and was getting into the engineering profession as a researcher in semiconductors and communications, we had so-called Moore’s Law, which is predictable,” he stated. “At present I don’t know anyone who can say they know what artificial intelligence goes to convey us in 5 years, not to mention in a single 12 months or two years.”
He inspired college students and younger professionals to be adaptable and versatile, and to not fear about failing, as a result of it’s to be anticipated.
To study extra about his profession and philanthropic work, learn IEEE Spectrum’sprofile of him within the upcoming Might print version.
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