Distinguished Alumni Award

About the Award

The Computer Science and Engineering department confers the Distinguished Alumni Award once every two years to a graduate of the department who has distinguished herself or himself in their profession, in a highly recognizable manner.

About the 2009 Recipient: Bonnie Holub

Photo of Bonnie Holub

Bonnie K. Holub (formerly Bonnie Holte Bennett), Ph.D. is a founder and CEO of Adventium Labs, a non-profit research and development lab, focusing on the development of advanced software applications for complex systems, with a particular emphasis on automated reasoning, human-system interaction, and supporting architectures. In just over seven years of operation, this group has been awarded almost $14 million in research funding from a variety of government labs and industrial research organizations.

Dr. Holub earned her doctorate degree in Computer Science focusing on Artificial Intelligence from the University of Minnesota. She was a principal at Knowledge Partners of Minnesota, and was the founder and director of the Artificial Intelligence/High Performance and Parallel Computing Lab in the Graduate Programs in Software (GPS) at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. During her tenure from 1985 to 2004, GPS grew to become the largest graduate program in software in the world. Dr. Holub was also a Senior Research Scientist at Honeywell Labs from 1981-1995. She has over 30 publications in national and international journals and conference proceedings in the areas of automated prognostics and diagnostics, information fusion, and parallel computing. In 1993 the Minnesota Federation of Engineering Societies selected her as the “Minnesota Young Engineer of the Year.” She also has served over nine years on several community non-profit boards, and is an active volunteer in community events.



About the 2009 Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals Recipient: Ajay Pandey

Photo of Ajay Pandey

Dr. Ajay Bhushan Pandey is a distinguished alumnus of the Institute of Technology, earning his master’s in computer science in 2000 and his Ph.D. in computer science in 2003. Dr. Pandey is currently the managing director of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd. (MSEDCL), the largest distributor of electricity in India.

After Dr. Pandey completed his Ph.D. he continued on his long-term mission to improve his home country and returned to India to renew his previous work in the Indian government. In his current role as managing director of the largest electricity distribution utility in India, he manages 70,000 employees and provides electricity to more than 14 million consumers. In the first 18 months under his leadership, he successfully led efforts to reduce distribution loss of electricity and raised annual revenue. He was also appointed as a member to the Indian government’s energy policy committee, an honored and influential position.

Past Recipients

2007

Jeffrey Dean, BA 1990

For his contributions to the scaling of Google's systems.

2005

Don Krantz, BA 1990, PhD 1995

For his dynamic contributions to the development of system architecture, and mobile robots, and bringing the technology to local companies, such as MTS Systems Corporation.

2003

Richard Weinberg, MS 1976, PhD 1982

For his original contributions and leadership in the areas of Computer Graphics and Animation, and their application to the Media Arts and Sciences.

2001

Arvind, Professor of Computer Science, MIT, MS 1972, PhD 1973

For his pioneering research in parallel computing, dataflow architectures, and declarative programming languages.

1999

Theodore C. Johnson, BS 1982

For his innovations in technical diagramming software, and for bringing them to practice as founding Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Visio Inc.