Monday, April 22 at 11:00 am
Nvidia Auditorium
1000 Malachowsky Hall
Food & Beverages Provided

ECE Florida is honored to host Dr. Walden (Wally) Rhines for an informal Q&A session Monday, April 22 at 11:00 am in the Nvidia Auditorium in Malachowsky Hall. The intimate conversation with Rhines will be a unique chance for students, staff, and faculty to talk to a wildly successful and future-minded individual who has been involved with a wide array of critical technological advances—electronic design automation, printed circuit board design, digital signal processing, semiconductors, and encryption.

Dr. Rhines is President and CEO of Cornami, Inc., a fabless software/semiconductor company focused on intelligent computing for fully homomorphic encryption and machine learning. He was previously CEO of Mentor Graphics for 25 years and Chairman of the Board for 17 years. During his tenure at Mentor, revenue nearly quadrupled and market value of the company increased 10X.

Prior to joining Mentor Graphics, Rhines was Executive Vice President, Semiconductor Group, responsible for Texas Instruments’ (TI) worldwide semiconductor business. During his 21 years at TI, he was President of the Data Systems Group, held numerous semiconductor executive management positions and was directly responsible for the creation and growth of the digital signal processing business which eventually comprised about 50% of TI’s total revenue.

Dr. Rhines’ connection with UF is a deep one—his father, Frederick Rhines, was the founder of UF’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Dr. Rhines grew up in Gainesville, and despite his many years elsewhere, his heart remains firmly rooted in Gainesville. His love of Gainesville is evidenced by the support which the Rhines Foundation provides around UF. At the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the foundation supports the Frederick N. Rhines Professorship and two Rhines Rising Star Faculty Development Funds, the Larry Hench Fund and the Robert DeHoff Fund. For ECE Florida, the foundation supports the Walden and Paula Rhines Professorship in Semiconductor Photonics as well as the Walden C. Rhines Professorship in Quantum Computing.

Rhines holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, an MBA from Southern Methodist University and Honorary Doctor of Technology degrees from the University of Florida and Nottingham Trent University.