Key takeaways
- Henry Samueli, a pioneering inventor and entrepreneur, was honored with the prestigious award for his work on broadband communication and networking technologies and his support for education in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
- Previous IEEE Medal of Honor winners have included Nobel laureates and renowned scholars from UCLA.
- A longtime philanthropic supporter of UCLA and its engineering school, Samueli has given nearly $190 million to the university.
Three-time UCLA alumnus and engineer Henry Samueli, chairman of Broadcom Inc. and the namesake of UCLA's engineering school, has been recognized with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' 2025 IEEE Medal of Honor, the global technical society's top award.
At a press conference today in New York City, Samueli was introduced as the recipient of this year's award and its accompanying $2 million prize — a major increase from the previous prize amount of $50,000 intended to cement the award's status as one of the world's most prestigious technology-focused honors.
With approximately 500,000 members from nearly 200 countries, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. In honoring Samueli, IEEE cited his "pioneering research and commercializing of broadband communication and networking technologies, and promotion of STEM education."
The medal will be formally presented to Samueli in April at an IEEE conference in Tokyo.
"I am deeply honored and humbled to receive the IEEE Medal of Honor," said Samueli, who has been a member of the organization for over 50 years. "I would have never dreamed of being bestowed with IEEE's highest honor when I first joined the organization as an undergraduate student at UCLA."
Groundbreaking work in broadband technology and entrepreneurship
Samueli earned three degrees in electrical engineering from UCLA: a bachelor's in 1975, a master's in 1976 and a doctorate in 1980. He was a member of the engineering faculty in 1991 when he co-founded Broadcom Corp. with one of his students, Henry Nicholas. In 1995, he took a leave of absence from UCLA to work at Broadcom full time. Known today as Broadcom Inc. and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the company is one of the world's largest semiconductor and infrastructure software companies.
A prolific inventor, Samueli holds more than 75 U.S. patents. He is widely known for helping make broadband internet access available to consumers by inventing and commercializing cable modems and other analog and mixed-signal circuits for modern communications systems.
Henry Samueli: A history of philanthropy and support for UCLA
In addition to his many professional achievements, Samueli is the owner of the Anaheim Ducks of the National Hockey League and a prominent philanthropist. In 2000, UCLA's engineering school was named the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science in recognition of a 1999 gift of $30 million from Samueli and his wife, Susan, through the Samueli Foundation. The engineering school at UC Irvine was also named for Samueli after a $20 million gift from the foundation the same year.
In 2016, the couple gave UCLA a $10 million gift to support the establishment of endowed faculty chairs in engineering, followed by a $20 million gift the next year to support expanding the diversity of undergraduate students in engineering and computer science. The Samuelis made a $10 million gift in 2018 to support the development of the school's Engineering VI building, and a year later, they gave $100 million to UCLA through their foundation as part of the Centennial Campaign to support the growth of the university.
Along with several additional gifts, the Samuelis have given more than $189 million to support UCLA and the school of engineering. Samueli has also been a longtime chair of the dean's executive board at UCLA Samueli, offering guidance to the school's leadership on issues such as capital projects and school expansion.
"This is a wonderful and well-deserved recognition for Henry, whose breakthrough technologies have helped usher in our digitally connected world," said Ah-Hyung "Alissa" Park, the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of Engineering at UCLA Samueli. "He cares deeply about the future of his alma mater and is truly an inspiration — as an engineer, a business leader and a philanthropist whose generosity and vision have greatly benefited UCLA and beyond."
Samueli has received numerous international honors for his contributions to communications technology, including the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award from the Global Semiconductor Alliance, the Marconi Society Prize and Fellowship, and the IEEE Founders Medal. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and IEEE. He is also a recipient of the University of California Presidential Medal, the UCLA Medal, the UC Irvine Medal and UCLA's Edward A. Dickson Alumnus of the Year award.
Established in 1917 as the Institute of Radio Engineers' Medal of Honor, the award was renamed the IEEE Medal of Honor when the organization merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1963 to form IEEE.
"IEEE is an invaluable resource to its hundreds of thousands of members worldwide, and I will certainly put the remarkable $2 million prize to good philanthropic use," said Samueli, who joins a list of engineering luminaries and electronics industry leaders who have received the IEEE Medal of Honor.
History of the IEEE Medal of Honor: Luminaries and Nobel laureates
Two of the annual award's last three recipients have been UCLA Samueli alumni, including Google's vice president and chief internet evangelist Vint Cerf in 2023 and UCLA Samueli distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering Asad Madni in 2022. Cerf received the award for co-creating the internet's architecture and his leadership in making it part of society's critical infrastructure. Madni was honored for his pioneering contributions to the development and commercialization of sensing and systems technologies.
Other notable recipients over the award's 100-plus year history include C. Kumar Patel, a UCLA professor emeritus of physics and astronomy who invented the carbon dioxide laser at Bell Labs; Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, whose Moore's Law posited that the number of transistors on integrated circuits would double about every two years; Claude Shannon, known as the father of information theory; Nobel laureate Paul Lauterbur, who co-developed technologies for magnetic resonance imaging; Nobel laureate William Shockley, a key figure in the development of the transistor; and Nobel laureate Guglielmo Marconi, whose invention of wireless telegraphy led to the development of the radio.
