Leonard Kleinrock SM '59, PhD '63 and Andrew Viterbi '57, SM '57 have been selected to receive the prestigious National Medal of Science, awarded by President George W. Bush.
Kleinrock, now Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, said he was "thrilled and greatly honored" to receive the nation's highest scientific honor, which was established in 1959 and is administered by the National Science Foundation.
The former chair of UCLA's computer science department, Kleinrock has supervised the research of 47 doctoral graduates and is the recipient of many honors and awards. In 1980, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering; in 2003, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Viterbi, a co-founder and retired vice chairman and chief technical officer of QUALCOMM and former UCLA and USC professor, is the president of the venture capital company The Viterbi Group.
In addition to Kleinrock and Viterbi, this year's National Medal of Science recipients are Fay Ajzenberg-Selove (University of Pennsylvania), Mostafa A. El-Sayed (Georgia Institute of Technology), Robert J. Lefkowitz (Duke University), Bert W. O'Malley (Baylor College of Medicine), Charles P. Slichter (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and David J. Wineland (National Institute of Standards and Technology).
Kleinrock, Viterbi and the six other distinguished scientists will receive their medals on Sept. 29 at a White House ceremony.
